


Taking Leave

by coyotl



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: BAMF!Stiles, Creepy!Peter, M/M, Magic!Stiles, Other, Stiles hits the road, and stuff happens, sane!Derek, vagabond!Stiles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-01
Updated: 2014-01-21
Packaged: 2017-12-07 03:28:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 54
Words: 90,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/743668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coyotl/pseuds/coyotl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles leaves.  It's not like he wanted to, ever, but he had to.  Sure, there were choices, always.<br/>It's just that, sometimes, all the choices were bad ones.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the smell of blood

**Author's Note:**

> As of completion, all updates will be for minor changes, primarily in the notes and egregious typos. I will not be changing the content significantly, so there's no need to re-read (unless you want to).  
> The particulars of this story exist as things stood at the end of season two, so - the original pack are still alive, Scott is not a True Alpha, Peter has come back from the dead and Kate is very fucking dead, and the Sheriff still doesn't know. And Stiles being a spark? That actually led somewhere.   
> This story begins a fair amount of indeterminate months/years after season 2 ends, months in which there are no Aplhas and half the cast is not killed off or disappeared. It picks up toward the end of their senior year.
> 
> Warnings for: blood, gore, sex, death, drug use, and addiction. And Badassery.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Stiles cracked open with a huge grin, one he could have called goofy if the kid weren’t covered in cuts and reeling from blood loss. In his case it just looked unhinged and dangerous. “I figured it out. If I pull it off, it’s gonna be beautiful.”_  
>  _No, nothing creepy about that_ at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This picks up at the end of season two.

The smell of blood didn’t stop Chris is in his advance, not completely, but it did put a hitch in his step, it did merit a short gasp.  Well, the kid had said it would ‘look bad,’  and he was grateful for the warning.  He slowed to a stop when he reached a little-used picnic spot in a little used corner of the preserve.  The small clearing was roughly circular in shape, and just about every inch of it was covered in chalk markings, radiating out from the center like a mandala.  Chalk markings and blood.  In the early dawn, the lines of blood were black, and it was clear to see that the blood had been poured _deliberately_ , markings in dark counterpoint to the bluish white of the chalk almost glowing in the pre-dawn light.

Stiles had just spent the whole night drawing pictures in the dirt, not by pushing his blood around with his fingers, no, doing it properly, spilling his blood in lines, dots and dashes over the chalk that had been laid down at the beginning of the spell.  And by the looks of it, nearly ran out of chalk markings to draw over before he ran out of blood.  

The only reason Chris recognized the spell is because it was one of the only prophetic spells (out of the millions of fortune-telling spells in existence) that hunters considered in any way trustworthy.  Because when done right, that shit actually worked.  _When done right_.  That was the thing.  Chris had thought he’d actually seen a couple done right.  And even though those spells had brought results, they were playground antics compared to this. 

He could hear Stiles off to the side.  He was sitting up against a scrubby live-oak tree, the waxy and spiny leaves above him rattling dry in the breeze, almost hiding his slow wheeze.  Slow but steady, which was a good sign.  Kid was weak, but he’d live.  Probably.

Chris spoke up without bothering to turn his head.  “You know, I thought _Spill blood until no more will fall!_ was meant to be something of a metaphor.”

Stiles let out a high gasping wheeze of a laugh, smartass at its best, sarcastic and cheeky as fuck, as he cracked open a ridiculously massive can of some sort of energy drink. Yeah, the kid was going to live.  Even with all the cuts he was hissing about every time he moved his arms.  They were clean, precise cuts, not too deep but sharp and deep enough to make the blood flow.  Clinical lines running parallel to each other, climbing like ladders from his wrists all the way up the inside of his arms.  The ones from his wrist to halfway up his forearm were doubled up, like he’d gone up as far as he could stand and then had to start over at the wrist again.

He probably emptied about half the can in one swallow, and Chris was surprised Stiles didn’t just puke it all up.  Hell, Chris wanted to puke in sympathy.  Stiles swiped at his mouth and then waved in the direction of the picnic area.

“So you know what this is?”His voice was a little slurred.

Chris could tell it was from sheer exhaustion, so he figured the sooner this was done with, the sooner he could drag the kid down off the mountain before he died of exposure.

“Yeah, I know what it is, I know what it does, and how much to trust it.  So the question is, why’d you call me?”  Chris was the first one there, the only one there, actually, and that was the biggest anomaly he needed to pin down. 

Oracles were oracles.  They couldn’t help but want to make you see things their way.  The trick was in knowing which questions to ask.  Chris caught a little spark in Stiles’ eye, like he appreciated the game, but dropped to something far more serious, far more _sober_ than it had been a minute ago.  He could tell it was costing the kid to keep his shit together, but it served its purpose.  Stiles wanted to be taken seriously.  And, Chris supposed, given the stunt he had just pulled, maybe he _should_ be taken seriously.  

He looked Stiles in the eye and nodded.  “ So, talk.”

“Peter knows about the hybrid.  He took a cutting, enough to grow his own, enough to make an antidote.”

It took Chris a second for his brain to catch up.  Peter knew about the hybrid wolfsbane he had been cultivating.  

The reasoning behind cultivating a hybrid was simple.  Create a complex enough mix of species, eventually none of the old antidotes would work on the new strain.  It was a simple concept but a very demanding process, so it wasn’t often done, especially considering that Wolfsbane could poison and kill humans even more easily than it did werewolves.  It could kill on contact, if you were careless.

So it was kind of a big deal, but still, it shouldn’t have been enough of a reason to warrant spilling almost all Stiles' blood.  Chris narrowed his eyes as the kid sucked down some packets of that new sports drink gel they were passing off as healthy, although he supposed in this instance they were.  He was probably in drastic need of electrolytes and salt.  And whatever else made blood.

“We have a treaty, Stiles, it doesn’t mean I have to let you all down my fucking pants.  It’s not as though I would even consider using it on any of you.  In case you haven’t realized, there’s lots of _other_ werewolves out there, and more than a fair share seem interested doing a lot worse than sticking their noses in your pack’s asses with a ‘hello and welcome to the neighborhood.’”

Stiles jerked out another one of those high-pitched, mocking laughs.  “Dog jokes.  I guess that’s something we could bond over.  Except, no, Chris – you would consider it.”

Chris tilted his head, confused but taken aback by the darkness those eyes.  “What?  Consider _what_?”

“You would consider killing all of us.  Each and every one of us.”

And even though he knew the sheer idiocy of what he was about to say, he couldn’t stop himself from shaking his head, demanding, “No.  No, you have no idea what you’re talking about.  You just got yourself confused there, took a wrong turn somewhere or something.”

Except Chris knew that wasn’t how the spell worked.  Telling the future was more like a ‘what if’ game.  Stiles would invoke, cut, and witness some version of the future as his body danced of its own accord, lost in a trance and drawing patterns in the dusty ground in drops and rivulets, feeding the earth.  He would come to when the cut stopped bleeding.  Then he would cut again and ask what if he did this or that differently, then what?  You couldn’t get lost in it, though.  The more far-fetched the possibilities became, the sooner the cut stopped bleeding, the sooner he’d have to cut again and explore a new avenue.  Try and figure out what had to happen to change the outcome. 

Stiles didn’t respond, just let him blow off steam for a second before Chris had his wits enough about himself to ask, “How does it end?”

Stiles could have argued that there was a never-ending realm of possibilities, but he shrugged instead, his voice hard but soft like a child’s.  “Everybody dies.  Almost every single time, everybody dies.  Everybody except Peter.”

Realization slid a chill over his scalp and down his spine.  “Peter.”

“Yeah.  He makes it out.  And you know why these endings are consistent, right?  You get that if it keeps happening, over and over, it’s because someone is making it happen, has thought over every possibility, _planned meticulously_.”  Stiles took a breath and kept talking, staring at the knees he’d folded up against himself.  “Peter knows about the hybrid, Chris.  Not Derek, not anyone else.  _Peter_ has the antidote.  And Peter has thought of way too many different ways to fuck with you enough to get you to gun down the whole pack, and none of them, let me tell you, _none of them_ go well for Allison.”

Chris tightened at the mention of Allison’s name, the rage at a perceived threat towards her making him bare his teeth.  “I think I can keep my family safe, Stiles.”  

That, in and of itself, was a fucking joke. Even Chris had to admit it.

Stiles snorted, as if to agree.  “Yeah, and meanwhile we have exhibit A: creepy werewolf uncle Peter returns from the dead only to lurk and play possum.  Keep in mind, this is the same creepy uncle Peter who was responsible for turning Scott in the first place.  Which brings us to exhibit B: stupidly cute and completely clueless Scott, who to this day, for no seriously good reason, _still_ refuses to accept Derek as his Alpha.  And Exhibit C–"  

He had to pause to catch his breath and his voice got just a little louder, just a little harder.  "Pay special attention to this one, Mr Argent, you might find it interesting: The sweet and lovely Allison, capable of all kids of daring feats and sneaky conspiracies, and who, it just so happens, is still fucking Scott.  Scott, who might, without even knowing it, already _have_ an Alpha.  Truth is, Peter might have been in control of Scott this whole time and we just might have missed it, what with the whole creepy possum act Peter's perfected.  Yeah, so here’s what you’ve got,"  his gaze nearly burned, "Creepy Uncle Peter wants everybody dead and Scott might be his puppet, Mr Argent.  Scott.  Who, in case you didn’t catch it the first time, is. Still. Fucking. Your daughter.”

He’d normally have to fight the urge to run off and find the little fucker and beat him to within an inch of his life, but the words _everybody dies_ had him rooted to his spot.  Stiles just spent an entire night figuring out how not to have everybody die, and Chris knew he found a solution because he hadn’t, after all, run out of chalk to spill on.  He tightened his jaw for a second and huffed out his nose before finally just giving in.

“Just tell me what to do, Stiles.  Tell me what you need.”

Stiles seemed to breathe a little looser, grateful for Chris’s reaction.  He pinned Chris with a sincere urgency that made him want to hold the kid.  “You need to leave, Mr Argent.  You need to take Allison and go.  Disappear.  I know you know how.  And you need to get Allison way the fuck away from here before she even realizes that something happened, toss her phone, don’t let her get in touch with anyone, and keep your heads down for a month or so.”

Chris nodded slowly.  “Do I have time to make some arrangements?” 

Not that there were arrangements that needed to be made, but more to test how serious the kid was.

Stiles shook his head hard.  “No.  Just go.  Peter’s going to find this soon, he’s going to know what it means, and if you and Allison are anywhere close enough for him to get to you, he will.”

“And if we aren’t near enough, Stiles?  Then what’s he going to do?”

Stiles cracked open with a huge grin, one he could have called goofy if the kid weren’t covered in cuts and reeling from blood loss.  In his case it just looked unhinged and dangerous.  “I figured it out.  If I pull it off, it’s gonna be beautiful.”

No, nothing creepy about that _at all._

But a whole night’s labor was telling Chris that smart money was on the kid.  Besides, let’s be honest, Chris wasn’t exactly heartbroken about leaving the town that had, in the span of a few months, become ground zero of the total implosion of his life.  He wouldn’t cry at the sight of this dump in his rear-view, no.  Wasn’t going to be coming back in a few months, either.  Might even be turning his back on the family business for a while.  Call it a sabbatical.  Or maybe call it something with the ring of something far more permanent.

Stiles wouldn’t let Chris take him to town, but he did let the man bandage up his wounds, and Chris stuck around to help with the cleanup, hauling up a couple five-gallon water canisters from the back of the Jeep and refilling Stiles’ watering can as the kid methodically obliterated the markings, moving counter-clockwise back into the spiraled design, starting from the end and working his way back to the beginning.

Chris left Stiles in the middle of a field of mud, looking tired and determined, maybe even a little satisfied.  He’d waved Chris off, and Chris took an extra moment to look, to really _look_ at this kid who by all rights he should have thought of as a young man.  He took a moment to consciously think about the fact that this would be the last time he’d see any member of the Hale Pack, and it seemed fitting that it should be this particular member, crouched inside a pool of chalk and muddied blood, smoking something that looked like a short fat cigar and smelled like nothing he’d ever smelled, thick, cloying, wet and musky. 

Until his dying day, if anyone ever spoke of Beacon Hills, it was that image he would first flash to, thick with the sense that he was definitely better off just getting the hell out.  

Chris never thanked Stiles to his face, but he thanked Stiles almost every single day when he woke up and realized with a relieved sigh that he was no longer in Beacon Hills.


	2. dodge a bullet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles, Peter and a shotgun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here comes the gore...

To: Creeper McCreepy-Pants

_I know about the bullets._

_Smithson park, northern point, come alone._

 

If he were to stop for a minute, Stiles would wonder about the wisdom of facing down a cold-blooded psychopathic murdering werewolf after all that fucking blood loss, but he wasn’t about to slow down, not yet, and the sooner he got this over with, the better his chances were of maybe getting through to the other side of it.

At least he wasn’t light-headed anymore.  After Scott’s mom finally stopped freaking out about her kid being a were, she was surprisingly forthcoming in helping Stiles prepare for emergencies, including blood loss.  Stiles wasn’t anything if not prepared.  He’d practically turned the back of his Jeep into a mobile ER for the human contingent of their current werewolf equation, and the shock-blanket, oxygen, and IV he hooked himself up to after Mr Argent left had worked exactly the way they were supposed to.  And wasn’t that fun, trying to give himself an IV while he was shaky and could hardly see straight?  Good thing he’d practiced. 

Stiles figured it was probably best to take Peter down right there, anyway, where the smell of drying earth and his blood would overwhelm those fine-tuned werewolf senses.  He’d done tests.  Secret tests, first on Scott, then confirmed (much more subtly) on other members of the werewolf posse (couldn’t call them a pack, what with Erica and Boyd still eating the guilt souffle, Derek with his abandonment issues, Scott with his commitment issues, Isaac playing peacemaker between them, Jackson fucking off completely and Peter being, well, fuck, just being Peter).  

It was comic-book or maybe greek-tragedy predictable that you could bring a werewolf down using what should have been one of their strengths, but there it was, ride hard down on one of their senses and you could disorient and distract them enough to get a move or two in.  And really, all Stiles needed was one move.  What with all that preparedness and such.

Erica could make as many boy-scout jokes as she liked, but Stiles knew the value of being prepared for any eventuality.  He knew it from the inside-out.  He’d lost months of sleep trying to figure out what he could have done differently for his mom, and after hitting the acceptance stage of the grief-tango, he decided that what he couldn’t do for the dead, he could do for the living, his dad and himself in particular, but with time the habit spread to include all the people he cared about.  He set out to make sure that if anything _did_ happen to anyone, he’d never have to ask himself that question again, because he would know, beyond a doubt, that he did everything he could.

And then this whole werewolf thing happened, with all-new levels of harm and trauma he’d never even considered as possibilities rearing up.  And just because he could nominally call that pubescent werewolf clusterfuck his friends didn’t mean he was going to count on any of them to save his ass if the time came.  When the time came.  Repeatedly and with all sorts of levels of pain and humiliation involved.  He’d learnt that lesson.  

The only person he’d come to count on, in the long run, had been Derek.  Which was why even though he wouldn’t call them a pack, he would call Derek his Alpha (even if it meant fuck-all given that he was human, and even if he’d never actually say it to his face).  And even with Derek, Stiles could only trust him as far as he could throw Peter, which was Never Far Enough.

So he’d done research and secret tests, chased down ideas, learnt how to fight and hide and work a bit of magic, and figured out, as best he could, how to take down a werewolf.  One thing he had realized was that it was best to stay away from conventional weapons, because werewolves like Peter knew what they sounded like, and even if they were reeling they would react instinctually quickly enough to dodge a bullet.  But unconventional weapons, especially ones that made almost no sound wouldn’t do much to pierce the haze that overwhelmed senses put them in.

Which was why, when Peter crouched down to examine the crushed cigar butt Stiles left on the ground, he only raised his head curiously at the soft sound of a home-made blow gun.  He was passed out head first in the dirt before his hand reached the dart in his neck, and if Stiles let out a huff of relief that his theoretical super-fast-acting werewolf trank actually worked, he was the only one awake enough to hear it.

 ~~~

Peter came to with a manacled wrist bolted to the back bumper of the Jeep.  Stiles sat a few feet away from him in a camping chair, holding a shotgun.  He was pale, his eyes bloodshot, and he was still in that way he rarely ever was.  It was the kind of stillness that set Peter on edge.  Nothing good ever came of a quiet Stiles.  At least, nothing good came to his foe, and Peter knew damn well he had cause for concern.  The kid already knew about the bullets, and if the trank and tie-down had anything to say about it, Peter was clearly not on the ‘friend’ side of the list.

Which begs the question.  “All this for a handful of hunter bullets, Stiles?”

Stiles smiled a short, sideways, ‘fuck you’ smile and huffed a laugh through his nose but gave no answer, not a single fucking sound.  Damned if _that_ didn’t have Peter straightening up to  kneeling, his hackles rising enough pull an unintended snarl out of him.  Stiles’ smile didn’t change much.  Just got a lot more toothy.  Kid had clearly spent way too much time amongst the wild things.  But then again, considering that Peter would just as soon kill him as put up with his shit, perhaps it kept Stiles alive.

Stiles finally stood up, moving the camp chair with one hand.  In the other arm he was cradling the shotgun, and it was uncanny the way he could keep the gun trained on Peter with little more than his elbow.  Definitely far too much time amongst the wolves.

He moved back to facing Peter, too far to reach but far, far too close for comfort.  His grip on the shotgun as he raised it and sighted was calm and practiced.  Which it should be, given that he was a sheriff’s son.  Stiles had known his way around a gun long before Peter had crossed paths with him.

“Stand up, Peter.”

Peter didn’t move.  Damned if he was going to perform for his own execution.

“Peter, use your nose for a minute, listen to my heart rate.  These aren’t wolfsbane bullets, Peter.”

The kid was telling the truth.  He could even smell it in the gun.  The shotgun was _that fucking close_ to him, and even if he could heal, it could still do a lot of damage and weaken him considerably as he healed.  It could be a really slow way to die, if Stiles were persistent enough.  That thought made bile rise to the back of his throat.  He didn’t want to die.  He had died before, and wasn’t ready to go back.  Sometime, just not yet.

Stiles kept talking softly, quietly, knowing Peter could hear him anyway. “You know what this is about, Peter.  Not gonna kill you.  I know you were maybe expecting that.  Were maybe going to argue that if I kill you, Scott’s going to go on an Alpha rampage.  And that argument would, what? Make me confused and undecided as to what I should do?  Which would buy you time to, I don’t know, chew your arm off?”

Peter didn’t answer.  Didn’t move.  Didn’t. Fucking. Breathe.

“Because, see, I could get behind a plan like that.”  He raised the gun and sighted again, backing up a bit.  “But I’m on a kinda tight schedule, so I’m going to help you move that plan along.  Not gonna kill you, Peter.  Just going take your arm.  So you might want to stand up and put some space between you and it, unless you want to be picking pellets out of your scalp and face for a week”

That had...  That was...  

That was not anything Peter had ever planned for.  Not an outcome he had even considered plausible.

And Stiles’ smile ratcheted up another notch, “See, now, that look on your face right there? That was worth a pint or two of blood.”

Peter doesn’t remember much after that, not for the next few seconds, not until he was crawling away from a Jeep turned into an incendiary device, trying hard not to look at his arm, still hanging from the bumper, left behind.  He would heal, he knew this, but that arm was never going to grow back.  Some things just didn’t.


	3. Give a hug to Aunt Sally

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Don’t look back. If you throw a bomb to get away, don’t look back, you’re just wasting the time you were trying to buy._

Peter was scared.  Of the gun, not so much.  He was terrified of Stiles.  Had been ever since he woke up and gave Stiles the once-over.  Stiles never thought he’d be in this position, like there must have been some  sort of a rift in the space-time continuum.  There was simply no reality in which Stiles thought he’d ever see Peter scared, especially of him.  After all, the guy had already burned to death.  Nearly twice.

Stiles thought he’d be more into it, thought he’d be doing his best happy dance at the thought of Peter cowering before him, but he didn’t.  He didn’t feel much of anything, and he guessed that was due to past experiences looking down both sides of the barrel and a hell of a lot of training.

_Don’t hesitate._ Deaton’s words, a whispered memory.

So he didn’t.  He lifted up the shotgun, snugged it up against his shoulder, dropped his stance, sighted, breathed out and pulled the trigger.

Peter’s shoulder exploded in a bloom of red and he launched himself well clear of the Jeep.  The shots went exactly where Stiles had wanted them to, drilling into the spare gas can after they’d gone through Peter.  The smell of gas was already in the air.  He went into the cab and shot through the floorboards roughly where he thought the Jeep’s gas tank was, but in actuality he had no clue if he was even close to it.  But hey, YOLO. It certainly didn’t hurt matters to aim some air holes towards the guts of the truck.  He dropped in a fist full of strike-anywhere matches, stepped back and dropped a lit match.  

_Keep moving, don’t ever slow down to check where your last shot landed._   Allison, that time.

He didn’t stop to watch the fire catch.  Moving fast but not running, he walked past the back window he’d punched out with the shot, lit and tossed in the cheap zippo he’d kept in the glove box for years just for this moment. It had ben engraved with _Daisy the Duchess of Hounds_. 

Stiles had known the day would come when he would have no choice but to torch the Jeep – there was way too much fucked up DNA smeared into the upholstery of that vehicle for there to be any other alternative.  There was not enough bleach in the Northern Continent to clean his darling of trace evidence.

As he walked away, past the scene of actual nasty fucking carnage, Stiles felt fire burning in his chest, in his guts, but he refused, _refused_ to look down at the bumper or watch Peter dragging himself away from the smell of smoke before he was really even conscious.  He would live, and he was less of a threat alive than dead.  Alive he was little more than a pissed off and easily distracting hindrance, dead he could set Scott off completely. 

Stiles walked to his kit, stripping completely and shoving himself into the brand new change of clothes he carried in his armageddon pack.  He tossed his old clothes into the now-smoldering car as he kited out of the parking lot, jogging slowly as he straightened the small pack on his back, releasing the straps that kept his skateboard attached to the bottom.

Things were going to start to get interesting when the fire hit the oxygen tank, flares and other explosives, and he needed to be definitely _not there_ when the Jeep lit up like the proper Viking sendoff it was meant to be.

It was meant to be a clear sign, as well, to everyone.  He’d talked to Scott about it before, they’d come up with different ways to torch the Jeep.  It was romantic, really.  And with Peter’s arm dangling from the back of it , Scott would _know_ that Stiles had done this himself.  Might not even be entirely surprised.  

After all, Stiles had been talking about Peter a lot lately.

But then, Stiles had been right, hadn’t he?

He pulled out his phone when he reached the blacktop and walked along its edge, ready to veer into the bushes if cars came (although this far from civilization they rarely ever did).  Hit the speed dial without even needing to look.

“Hey Dad, I know it looks bad, but I’m okay, and I did what I did for good reasons.  I mean it, though, I’m okay, but I have to go, Dad.  I’ll try to keep in touch, but it might be a while.  Give a hug to Aunt Sally.”

There was no Aunt Sally.  It was a code he and his dad came up with a long long time ago in case the bad guy with the army of robots took him hostage and made him call his dad, pretending to be fine.  If there was no Aunt Sally, he was not fine.  Stiles figured it got the point across that no one was forcing him to run.  He took his phone apart and flung bits of it hard into the bushes, biting back a flood of tears.

_Don’t look back.  If you throw a bomb to get away, don’t look back, you’re just wasting the time you were trying to buy._   Lydia.  Always with the best advice.

 


	4. count it a win

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Longest motherfucking day of his life_

Stiles dropped his skateboard off his pack and rode hard and fast.  It wasn’t as fast as a bike but it was much easier to carry.  He hadn’t actually ridden a skateboard until the Werewolf Event fucked his life, but it seemed like it might be a useful skill, so.  Turned out to be pretty fun, too, once he figured out how not to break his ass. 

The new clothes- they actually did make a difference in terms of scent-tracking.  Not that he was about to kid himself that any of his friends and relatives relied on it, but if Peter was already ape-shit and was tracking him in a feral state, this would slow him down considerably.  

So he pushed as far as he could with brand new shoes and socks, stopped at a diner and caught a ride with a trucker going out on a long haul. He was stepping off the rig and saying his goodbyes in Reno at one of the busiest truck stops on the 80 by the time the sun was shining low behind him.  There was a motel just down the road and Stiles figured if there was a time he should blow some of the last of his cash, this night would count.  The place had a pool with a little fence around it out back.  

He was sitting on the edge with his legs dangling in, cold beer in one hand, sharing a joint with the owner/manager/bartender of the motel within an hour of unloading his pack in his room.  The old man was decent.  Didn’t seem to be coming on to him even though Stiles was half-expecting it.  Just sat down, offered the beer, offered a drag and sighed deeply as he dipped his feet in the water.

“Long day.” the old man said, taking back the joint and rolling his shoulders.

Long day.  Fuck if it wasn’t.  

The world slowed to a stop around him for a second and Stiles had to fight down a sob with a gasp, watching dust motes bounce in the last rays of the summer sun.

At this time yesterday he had been throwing ideas around with Scott,  Scott only halfway keeping up with Stiles as he rambled about spells and which one would work best.  At this time yesterday the idea that you could see into the future had been strictly theoretical.  

It had been a very long fucking day.

The old man shook Stiles out of his thoughts with a bump to his shoulder, handing him back the joint.  Their eyes held for a few seconds and the old man nodded as he crouched into standing.

“Tell you what, you look like you could use the rest of that.  Just take it on back to your room.  Get some sleep kid.  You’re gonna need it for wherever it is you’re going.”

Stiles watched the man’s back disappear back into the office before he even thought he ought to say something.  Huh. Yeah, he should definitely get back to his room.

 

He showered and then soaked in the bath until the water cooled, reliving all the different futures he had seen, worrying away at useless bits and pieces of things just to keep himself from hearing the silence closing in around him.  

After cleaning and re-wrapping his arms, he sprawled out under the covers, flipping through the tv while he smoked the rest of the joint, willing himself not to think, at all, about anything.  It worked pretty well.  He managed to smoke enough to pass out before he had a panic attack, so all in all he was going to count it a win.

 

He woke in the dead of night with the memory of heat pressed up against his back.  A ghost memory of Derek, not all nights but sometimes, especially when things were getting hairy.  Stiles took it grudgingly at first, thinking Derek felt the need to beef up security for the pitiful human, but then one night they got stuck out in the bush, Derek injured and Stiles not having slept for days.  

They found a spot, a little dried out burrow of an open cave.  Just as Stiles was slipping off to sleep it occurred to him that they were laying in exactly the same way that Derek slept with him in his room.  Derek had positioned both of them facing out, their backs pressed tight against each other.  

Stiles had always thought it was some sort of message about not getting the wrong idea, except that wasn’t what it was at all.  They were covering each other’s blind spot, gaining strength and sharing warmth in a way that would allow both of them to be able to drop some of their tension so they could start to heal.  

He had come to appreciate and even need those moments.  It was no small thing that when Derek felt threatened he came to Stiles to watch his back while they slept.  It was no small thing to know that Derek believed him strong enough and capable enough to back him even when pitched out of a dead sleep.

 

Stiles came back to the present moment with a whimper.  He hit the floor in a ball, mouth open and making no sound until a sobbing gasp finally ripped through his chest.  He didn’t try to hold himself back after that, knew he probably couldn’t have even if he tried.  

His face was covered in snot and tears, his eyes red and swollen when he finally felt capable of getting up and rifling through the meds for a couple vicodin.  He thought about Lydia as he washed his face and swallowed down the pills.  

Those were a part of the medical supplies Melissa had known nothing about but Lydia kept Stiles stocked with.  Lydia had some pretty strangely fucked up connections, but whatever, it kept Stiles in painkillers, sedatives and Zithromax.  (Because the dog bite jokes weren’t anywhere near as funny when you actually did have to take a festering bite to an ER doctor.)

Stiles piled everything he owned on to the bed right behind him and concentrated on breathing until the warm and shivery slide of the meds took him out completely.

Longest motherfucking day of his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BTW, this work is unbetaed because I roll without training wheels, 'sup? (Actually it's because I'm lazy as fuck and refuse to endure any sort of an editing process. Oh. You noticed that, did you?)  
> Almost forgot! tumblr for *other* trashy fic: VendettaLeeWrites.tumblr.com  
> : )


	5. fly with that

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _And then he was standing outside the seedy motel in a trucker’s paradise and everybody else’s idea of a bad trip, wondering what the fuck he was supposed to do._

Stiles woke up with a start to the noise of a vacuum cleaner running a few doors down.  He was a little late with the checkout time, but the woman behind the counter didn’t seem to care, giving Stiles back his five dollar key-deposit without raising her eyes from the romance novel in front of her.

And then he was standing outside the seedy motel in a trucker’s paradise and everybody else’s idea of a bad trip, wondering what the fuck he was supposed to do.

Catching that ride out had been easy, he had been on somewhat familiar ground.  Even if he didn’t know the little diner, he’d been in way too many like it.  Finding a ride out was a matter of asking the waitress to point out who was headed out, then striking up a couple conversations.  This, on the other hand, with motorists heading every which way and the diner a madhouse, was something he had no idea what to do with.  But he knew he had to go, so he drank a cup of coffee and tried to come up with a plan.

The world seemed much more simple when he had a plan.

By his second cup he realized he had no idea where he wanted to go next, and thought maybe that was his problem.  He kept thinking that anything he chose would be predictable, in particular with creatures for whom tracking was a hard-wired instinct.  Innuendo aside, Derek knew which way he’d bolt.  Every. Damn. Time.   

He was sitting at the counter of the bustling diner, plowing through a stack of pancakes swimming in syrup.  Not his favorite, actually he liked the fluffiness of waffles much more, but they were dense, they would stick to him for a while.  He remembered watching a tv show about the Masai, and the announcer talking about how the Masai carried their food in their bodies, and Stiles was going to go with that.

He glanced around and took a look at the guy sitting next to him.  For no particular reason, Stiles thought he looked like a cab driver.  The guy caught Stiles looking, but  just nodded with a quick smile.

“Good, aren’t they?” He asked, pointing to Stiles’ pancakes.

Stiles nodded, feeling a little startled.  “Sure.” he said, and immediately thought _if you like that sort of thing_.  

How to lie to werewolves 101.  Answer vaguely and finish the answer in your mind.  Sometimes it even worked.  

Of course, it had no effect whatsoever on the guy next to him, being human and capable of having a rational conversation without constantly digging for hidden meaning behind every breath and heartbeat.   

Stiles had once had a friend who swore she was psychic.  She was certainly a good judge of character, Stiles would give her that much.  But see, he hadn’t needed proof of her mind-reading abilities before he couldn’t even be around her without vibrating apart with wondering if she was listening to him right that moment, or if he knew the slutty things he pictured her doing and... well.  Stiles just couldn’t much hang out with her after that, even if the chances she could actually tap into his brain were virtually nil. There only needed to be the possibility.

Which made hanging out with werewolves, some who had been wolves since birth and had battle-heightened senses, a practice he had to work hard at getting used to.  Bottom line, the whole – “Your biometric output indicates you are uneasy, Stiles, do you require medication?” – thing (okay, so no one ever said that, but they didn’t really need to, now did they?  They just had to glower menacingly and bark out “What _now_ Stiles?”)  It was creepy, Okay?  It would never not be creepy that someone you know can smell your mood and hear your lies. 

The waitress startled Stiles back to the present by refilling his cup, and he glanced back at the guy, who was watching him while drinking his coffee.

“If you don’t mind my saying,” the guy said around a bite of toast, “You’re looking lost, kid.”

Stiles coughed out a little laugh.  “Yeah, you could say that.  That’s probably pretty true.  I mean, I know where I am, it’s just not helping any to know that.”

The man nodded a little.  “Well, figure out what direction you want to move in and start walking.”

Stiles shook his head.  “See, that’s the problem.”

The man shrugged his shoulders.  “Then don’t figure it out.  Flip a coin and fly with that.”

Which was, when Stiles really thought about it, a brilliant idea.  He had runes. (Well, actually they weren’t really runes, they were scrabble tiles, which was even better because they could represent any rune you wanted.)  Relieved and finally moving with some purpose, Stiles found a good a tree to sit under and pulled out a little purple velvet bag, the kind that comes off those fancy liquor bottles, poured out some tiles, sifting through them.  Pulling out the N-S-E-W tiles, he packed up his bag again, rattling the four tiles in his hand and trying not to exert his will on the outcome of this toss, putting his fate up to the mercy of all interested gods and spirits out there.  He loved that feeling.  Like he was about to jump off a cliff.

Simple plan.  Toss the tiles and remove the ones that land face-down.  Repeat until there is only one tile left.  Clutching the last tile and pocketing the rest, Stiles sighed and shook himself out, life coming back to his limbs.  Freed of control, he felt like he was stepping into some mighty flow.  

He found a piece of cardboard and wrote the word “NORTH” on it, standing by an onramp headed in that direction.  He took the first ride that stopped for him.  

It was a couple of little old ladies in an ancient little economy sedan.  It turns out that they were sisters, and Jehova’s Witnesses.  They convinced him to pray with them in the car and sent him off with a fistful of pamphlets.  All in all, it was good.  

He tossed the tiles again, went North again, lather, rise, repeat, until somehow, eventually, he wound up washing dishes in a little greasy spoon in Boise.   

Stiles had gone in asking for any food they were going to throw away.  The owner told him to get his ass in the kitchen, and that if he could help him close up for the day, he’d give him not just a decent meal, but pay, too. 

It was easy work, compared to a lot of the jobs he’d gotten on the road, mostly picking and harvesting, (the regulars calling him _Angelito_ and giving him endless shit about how little he could heft and how slow he worked.  And it wasn't that he was weak, either.  It was destroying his hands, and it _hurt,_  his skin just not toughened by a lifetime of this kind of work.)  Hard not to follow instruction when the owner told him in a gruff voice to come back at the same time tomorrow.  

And so, Stiles stayed.  Slowed down a little, and while he was still homeless, he wasn’t just a shadow passing through anymore.  He gained a reputation for being a decent guy, and for gutterpunk kids without tvs, computers or cell phones, his ADD-fueled tangents on all the weird shit he knew were a welcome source of entertainment. 

People found him sane and capable of taking care of himself, which was a rare commodity, and it was always good to have a guy around with a level head who could hold his own in a fight, so he never lacked for a place to uncurl his bedroll.  He wasn’t exactly settling down, but he figured there wasn’t much harm in slowing down for just a minute. 

Of fucking course that would be when the harpies that were his fates intervened and made sure that he would never ever know a moment of safety since the day he thought it would be a good idea to look for a dead body in the woods.

It was only natural, Stiles had come to understand that.  

And it wasn’t as though he really deserved a break, anyway, in the grand scheme of things, given how many lives he’d already colluded in taking and taken himself with his own armed hands.  (Not bare, never bare, never unarmed.  Ever)  

Fair to say he’d come to understand a number of things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one had a hard time pulling itself together, like a drunk old lady in nothing but a bathrobe and boxer shorts.  
> 


	6. a straight shot of cheap gin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He didn’t have his gear yet._
> 
> _At least, that was how he was going to justify the way he stopped dead in his tracks and dropped a full step back when he ran straight into Alpha eyes, glowing from the face of a woman with hair shot through in silver and a swagger that let you know her razorblade grin had a heartbeat behind it that was calm as a stone._

Fair to say he’d come to understand a number of things, sure.  Learned to act on them?  Not so much.  Like one of the most important rules: _Never stop running_.

He had known.  Known but was pretending he didn’t, hoping he could at least slow to a fucking walk, but he had known all along.  Not like he hadn’t been present at a hundred werewolf hunts.  They ran you down, it’s what they did, no matter what skin they wore.  

And, well, he might have to admit that there was more than one reason he’d slowed down.  Maybe it hadn’t exactly been entirely innocent.  Stiles had a very bad habit of baiting Derek, after all.

 

_(Claws digging into the wall on either side of his face, clawed thumbs disturbingly close to Stiles’ eyes, Derek’s teeth bared, breathing in snorted growls, and even if Stiles wasn’t going to admit it, it was impressively terrifying.  But even if his heart was beating out of his chest and he reeked of fear-adrenaline, he couldn’t stop himself from grinning and leaning forward._

_“Hate to break it to ‘ya, big boy, but your inner asshole is shining through.  Might want to tone down the diva manpain.”_

_It worked.  Derek came as close to killing Stiles as he ever had, but in the end it worked.  Monster or not, nobody like to be called uncivilized._

_He sometimes asked himself, as he pushed and prodded and knocked all the werewolves off their game, if maybe at some point he was going to push one of them just a little too far._

_He tried to ignore the way his mouth watered and heart skipped in response.  There had to be something seriously fucked up about the heat that was flaring at the base of his spine and loosening his hips at the thought of Derek taking him down like a baby deer.)_

 

So, okay, he had to admit that he was expecting some sort of contact.  The werewolf community was small, and even though they were as bitchy as a bunch of beauty pageant queens, they talked, word got around.  

But he sure as hell hadn’t expected that he’d get run down in broad daylight by two of Boise’s finest, who also just happened to be two ‘law abiding, self respecting, _civilized_ werewolves,’ who apparently took great exception to gunshot amputations.

Luckily... or, not.  Maybe not-so-luckily, the cops didn’t want to take him in and have him placed in the system.  ‘Werewolf Business,’ they said, but it sure as hell hadn’t stopped them from cuffing him and sticking him in the back of the cruiser.  He had a couple tricks for getting out of the cuffs, but they had his backpack.  He would really give a lot not to have to leave his pack behind.  And okay, everyone knows what happened to the cat, but maybe he wanted to see where this was going, as well.

They drove down a dirt road and stopped in front of a decrepit robber-baron’s mansion, all heavy wood and moss.  Stiles didn’t bother hiding a groan as he leaned forward.  “Fuck.  Does it always have to be a run-down shithole?  Seriously, is it some instinctual – wait, I think I get it.  You fuckers aren’t part wolf.  You’re junkyard dogs, aren’t you?  Just slap the word ‘wolf’ on there to try to give it some class, but come on.  Look around...”  

Because Stiles would never, ever regret playing a game of ‘bait the wolf,’ even though he ought to damn well know better.  And anyway, aside from the threat of imminent physical harm, the fun served a purpose.  He wanted them tense, he wanted them angry.  Derek had good reason to use anger as an anchor.  It kept them human, gripping to such a very human emotion.

The raised eyebrow the cop in the passenger’s seat gave him might have stopped a mere mortal’s heart cold, but Stiles had experience with eyebrows, and this guy was a novice in the art of eyebrow intimidation.

Stiles leaned back and cocked his head a little.  “Hmm, or maybe pit bull.  You definitely have that pit bull thing going for you.  But then again, maybe that’s a cop thi–”

He’d been so busy talking he hadn’t noticed his door being opened until he was dragged out and tossed headfirst to the ground.  Stiles twisted as he fell and rolled himself up until he was kneeling, reeling a little from the speed of things, but still not exactly completely scared.  He’d had lots of time to be scared.  It had lost its appeal.  

The truth was that he had been starting to wonder if running was worth it anymore.  

The minute someone’s foot made hard contact with his kidney, he realized that yeah, running was so very worth it.  It wasn’t about the pain.  Pain was just a thing to be lived through, but the adrenalin that came with it, the glistening clarity, that imperative call that demanded survival, to live, first and foremost, to survive – he had no defense against _that_ singing through his blood.

He rolled and slid out of the way, pulling himself up as his attacker watched him without advancing.  Stiles bought himself some time to catch his breath as he stood and stretched himself a little, taking advantage of the way the cuffs bound him back, and paying more attention to the way they made him _feel_ than to anything that was going on around him.

If he wasn’t going to break out of his cuffs for the moment, he was going to have to roll with the literal punches.  He took it on faith that the Hales wanted his ass alive, that these fuckers were just softening him up.  

(The thing was, even if he didn’t like getting kicked or punched, Stiles _loved_ getting cuffed, held down, _restrained_.  Yea, fuck your fucking daddy jokes, whatever, Stiles kinks, don’t judge.  And the thing, see, the thing was –)

It had been a woman who had dragged him out of the car and kicked him.  She was a glorious amazon, with long dark hair and dark green nails which she dug into his cheeks as she held him close to look at him.

Stiles went with it, let himself feel the way his breath tightened and his blood sang hot, hungry and so very much alive.  He leaned in a little and sniffed.

It’s a weird little quirk he’d noticed.  Sniff one of them, they sniff you back.  They can’t help it, it’s like blinking, they don’t even notice they’re doing it most of the time.  Until it was too late and Stiles slipped inside, lung-deep with a needy smell they couldn’t ignore.  

( – he could _use_ it.  As soon as he got over whatever it was he was supposed to be embarrassed about, he could fucking get off and use it like a weapon against all those odor-whores.  He nearly gave Isaac a seizure once.  Whatever.  It was training.  It was awesome.)

Distracting, is what it was, so his amazon princess didn’t notice the small movements of his arms and hands as she leaned in and took a deeper whiff.  Stiles lifted his chin and panted just a little, enjoying the little shivers that ran up and down his spine.  Getting insanely off on the idea that he could die, right that very moment, and it would be worth it because it would be so damned _hot_.  That shit trumped survival instinct any day.

She finally got it, shook her head and straightened with a chuckle.  “What the fuck do you think you're doing, kid?”

Stiles smiled slow and easy with a shrug that exaggerated his bound posture.  “Guess I was just getting a little bored.”

He let his heart race as hard as it needed to but acted perfectly calm. To tell an outright lie was another either brilliant distraction or suicidal tactic.   It was confusing enough to _made_ werewolves, but to _born_ wolves it was captivating.  They couldn’t lie to one another past omission and bending the truth, they mostly didn’t even bother trying, so in a weird way, they were guileless, fascinated by this deliberate contradiction.  

The woman took another big step back, shaking her head again, this time with a sneer.  “Jesus fuck, you really are a Hale, aren’t you?”

One of Stiles’ eyebrows raised. “You knew the Hales.”

It was her turn to smirk.  “They always were a bunch of arrogant fuckers.  Even now, with the last sad little lost boy and his pathetic cult of teenaged–”

Stiles stepped up into her face showing all his teeth in an angry snarl, mostly because it was expected of him and suited his needs, but partly because he really did want to rip her face off.  The two cops who were lurking about stepped in close as well, which was the best he could ask for.

He dropped a little vial he’d slipped out of his wristband to the ground and stepped on it with his heel.  The werewolves were crowding close to Stiles and were amped, half-turned as they stood, their senses flying on overdrive with all the confusing messages Stiles had been putting out.  

The vial leaked out a fume.  It was nasty enough for a human nose – rotten banana, ammonia, death, patchouli, and some other shit he could no longer name but clung to the delicate insides of a nose and burned the back of the eyes – for a were’s senses it was like mace, the odors specifically chosen for their offensive and disorienting effect.

(Interestingly, one of his most recent additions was vanilla.  Not for the way it smelled so much as for the way the odor seeped on to the tongue, pulling in the sweetness of decrepitude and rot in its wake.)

He spat out a tiny spell, a little hiss of a sharp sound, snapped his fingers and the cuffs fell to the ground.  This had all taken the space between a breath.  He was running before the fumes really even got to him, but the three werewolves had been stopped cold for precious moments. He snorted when he heard one of them retch, but he didn’t for a second kid himself into thinking he was going to get out of it that easily.

Besides, he didn’t have his gear yet.

At least, that was how he was going to justify the way he stopped dead in his tracks and dropped a full step back when he ran straight into Alpha eyes, glowing from the face of a woman with hair shot through in silver and a swagger that let you know _her_ razorblade grin had a heartbeat behind it that was calm as a stone.

Stiles caught himself wondering if maybe he should kneel.  It took him a few seconds to remember how to breathe.  The Alpha took another step toward him and Stiles could see a resemblance between this tall whipcord lean woman in front of him and the bitch who had so recently kicked him and was now... was she?  Yeah, there she went, puking her guts out somewhere not far behind him.

Seriously?  He knew he was gong to pay dearly for it, but that was fucking awesome.

The Alpha gave him a pissed off smirk.  “You done fucking around with the Betas, human?  Because if you aren’t, I can get one of them to perform a cavity search to make sure you’re not going to annoy me again.  I’m sure they’d be thorough.”

Stiles barked out a cough and shook his head.  “Ah, no.  Yeah, nope, I think I’m done, pretty much completely.  No more tricks.”

Before he could register the movement, she was shoving him forward with a clawed hand to the back of his neck, small punctures sending itching lines of blood down Stile’s collar.

Well, he was in it now.

He missed this.  

The thought hit him like a straight shot of cheap gin and left him reeling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apropos of nothing, here's a random little fact for you patient darlings: Peter lost his arm at high noon.  
> 


	7. you know the drill, boys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Okay, so maybe his sense of judgement was impaired._
> 
> _Stiles would guess there wasn’t a single guidebook to werewolf etiquette that would suggest that being a snarky asshole to a stranger’s pack Alpha while surrounded by said pissed-off pack was ever, in any way and under any circumstance, a good idea._
> 
> _And that would be because it was not, in any way and under any circumstance, a good idea._

“Clarisse, what part of alive and uninjured are you not getting, here?”  As if she didn’t have her claws buried in his neck, the Alpha’s tone was almost amused.  Almost. 

His amazon princess straightened and cleared her throat, wiping her mouth with the back of a hand.  “Uninjured.  The bounty didn’t say anything about _unharmed_.  Besides, the kid’s clumsy.  Who’s going to count a few more bruises?”

Stiles’ mouth dropped open in offense.  “ _Excuse me?  Clumsy?_ ”  That actually kind of stung a little.  He’d worked hard on that problem.  “I’ll have you know–”

Everyone ignored him.  He was used to that.  He was used to providing people with noise they could ignore so that they didn’t feel like he was listening in.  It was a known fact, background noise made people loosen up.  

On the inside, though, it was all he could do to keep his breathing under control, making his heart run steady if a bit fast.  The fast heart-rate was to be expected, provided it stayed about the same throughout.  It was a sudden spike in a pulse that would catch their attention and got them tracking like house-cats.

But holy fuck, _a bounty_.  _The bastards put a bounty out on him_.  He guessed Peter really missed his arm.  And it was some sort of a werewolf bounty, which while Stiles couldn’t imagine what all that meant, he could picture more than a hundred ways this could go badly for him.  He had no clue how it could possibly go right, but honestly he liked it better that way.  It left him open for insane possibilities, and those tended to work pretty well for him.  All hail the venerable lords of chaotic neutrality.

The Alpha gave him a good shake.  Stiles assumed it meant she wanted him to shut up, but he never really listened when people told him to shut up, so he had no clear reason to start this far down the line.  Besides, there were more important things going on, like the inevitable truth that he was going to die soon, either by Hale hands or in some other violent and less than desirable fashion.  All he wanted to do was go somewhere quiet and brood for a while.   

“So, can we just skip the bullshit and get to the part where I’m resting under your roof and eating your food?  And could you get your fucking claws out of my neck?”

Okay, so maybe his sense of judgement was impaired.

Stiles would guess there wasn’t a single guidebook to werewolf etiquette that would suggest that being a snarky asshole to a stranger’s pack Alpha while surrounded by said pissed-off pack was ever, in any way and under any circumstance, a good idea.  

And that would be because it was not, in any way and under any circumstance, a good idea.

She tossed him on the ground like something unpleasant that had stuck to her hand.  “Clara, you’ve had your fun.  Is there anyone else here who has a right to demand redress?”

Not quite sure where she was going with ‘redress,’ but Stiles had a really bad feeling about it when the two cops stepped up, still red-eyed and queasy-looking from the stink-bomb.

The Alpha nodded and stepped back, crossing her arms and adding “You know the drill, boys.  No serious injury.”

Yeah. Stiles managed to talk himself into a serious ass-kicking within minutes of meeting an Alpha.  He just had a knack for that kind of thing.  If the outcome didn’t always suck balls, he’d consider it a skill.

They wasted no time closing in. Stiles let them get close before squirming out of their grasp.  He wasn’t fool enough to try running, his best chance for that would be at the transfer point or after the Hales dragged him home.  If they took him that far.  So he was stuck with whatever was coming for the immediate future, but that didn’t mean he was going to make it easy on anyone.  

Besides, the more they had to wait for it, the faster the beating would be in the end.  It was rougher, sure, and it would be two of them which would really suck, but it was better this way, without some drawn-out taking turns bullshit that always left the last party resentful about not having fresh meat to lay some pain on.  That shit got spiteful, fast.

He’d take the whole lacrosse team over two wolves, though.  Sure, the risk of organ rupture and internal bleeding was higher with a bunch of jocks, but it was the external bleeding that Stiles was really not looking forward to.  Werewolves didn’t retract their claws, they punched with the heel of their hand and dragged their wicked-sharp claws along after.  His torso wasn’t just going to be bruised like a plum, it was going to get sliced to hell.  No doubt these assholes didn’t have any disinfectants either.  Maybe they were gonna just roll him in table salt when this was over.  

Maybe this would finally be the moment that Stiles would learn to keep his fucking mouth shut.  Or not.  Probably not, he thought, as he ducked under another swipe and nearly into the second cop’s arms.  He slid out sideways like jello, but not before the wolf raked his claws down Stile’s back along his ribs.

The two were working together in a seamless fashion that Stiles envied.  They had no need to talk, send signals or even make eye contact, and it was seriously hard work to keep them from circling him.  There were feints and strikes and by the time one of them got a good grip on Stiles’ collar, blood was seeping in stinging ribbons over his torso, down his arms and up his legs, his clothes sticking painfully to the open wounds.

Shallow cuts, every one of them, because apparently these two bastards were plenty spiteful even if they didn’t mind sharing.  Stiles would heal, stinging and burning the whole time.  Some of the cuts were as thin as papercuts but long, running from his ribs to his hips, up the inside of his arm, over his stomach – where he’d feel it every time he moved.  And the boys were just getting started.

Stiles skittered away after he slid out of his shirts and the cop’s hands, knowing he was probably only seconds away from being pounded into meatloaf.  It was a common werewolf fighting tactic– cut their opponent open and then beat them as the cuts try to heal.  Clearly, from the way they hadn’t completely eviscerated him they knew what human limits looked like.  They probably also knew from personal experience how much it sucked to get punched in an open wound. 

Instead of feeling them close in like lighting, he felt everything around him still and was startled by a collective gasp.  He hadn’t realized how large and audience they had gained.  He looked around, unable to stop the sudden overwhelming sense of panic at the way he was so thoroughly surrounded and the way no one was moving, all staring at his bared torso.  He had his arms crossed over his chest before he even realized he’d moved.

“Stop.  Hands down.”  Alpha curt, hard for anyone to disobey.

Stiles dropped his arms, staring hard at the ground, trying to ignore the way he felt like he was being eye-raped by fifteen to twenty werewolves.  Not that it had anything to do with his well-toned body (running with wolves had done amazing things to his body, and Stiles took pride in knowing that every cell of toned muscle on his person had been hard fought for and not given as a gift.)  But no, unfortunately it was not his gorgeous physique they were fixating on.  He knew what they were staring at.

For starters, there were the scars.  They didn’t necessarily look like all that much  to the untrained eye, (Stiles was meticulous with wound-care because he knew what the word sepsis meant) but these wolves could guess what kind of shit he had been up to that left him criss-crossed and polka-dotted with scars, some pale and some dark like wine stains from the residual magic burn.

And then there were the runes.  Tattooed in techniques ranging from as old as inked sinew sown through the skin to as new as the latest in blacklight technology.  A handful of the markings weren’t even tattoos at all.  

_(There were two that he had no fucking clue about.  In those places his skin took on the rough-and-slick of cloisonne, the colors bright and skin smooth like enamel with  outlines as rough as old metal._

_He’d helped the fae once or twice.  They hated owing favors.  They bequeathed those runes upon him by dragging him away in a panel van and knocking him out for the better part of a day, human standard time._

_The marks had just been there, perched below each collar bone when he came to, being shaken awake at some drop-off point on a back road.  He still wasn’t entirely sure what they did.  Derek wouldn’t talk about them, either.  He just paled the first time he saw them when he picked Stiles up off the road and mostly avoided looking at them thereafter.  All Scott could say was that they felt creepy but that he couldn’t stop wanting to look at them.)_

The rest of the runes were bizarre twining patterns scattered like galaxies throughout his body.  Some were specific, like strength and elephant magic perched over his heart and heat and endurance coiling up from his groin and base chakra.  Other tattoos covered scars, urgent scrawls made to counteract some sort of magic or poison.  A lot of those were combinations of letters that looked like formulas, Lydia’s neat script reminding him of her careful explanations while she carved him up, so that he understood, so that he could will them to work with the heat of certainty. 

Lydia was the only person other than himself that he trusted to design a rune to place permanently into his skin.  The ones that weren’t hers were his own cryptic combinations of images and symbols, some taken from ancient sources, others taken from engineering and construction diagrams or whatever other kinds of symbolic language spoke to him.

His newest, favorite and most powerful looked like electrical diagrams connecting hobo pictograms mixed with sumerian writing.  They covered his spleen, liver and kidneys in a loosely linked pattern that looked like exposed circuitry.  It was an endocrine catch-all, protection against both poison and mood-inducing spells, a sturdy roadblock against anyone trying to use mind-control.  It didn’t work on eyebrows, though.  Or on pissed off Alphas, like the one walking slowly up to him.

He didn’t raise his head and she didn’t make him, just took him by one wrist and turned his arm out.  Oh, yeah.  There was one more piece of flair to add to the collection.  He’d forgotten about the scars from the forecasting spell.  They had healed small, raised, and white like chalk.  In the early morning hours they glowed the same way that picnic ground had glowed.  

Stiles finally turned his eyes up a little.  The woman’s face was difficult to read but she looked like she was thinking hard.  Her hand ran up and down the stripes, not quite touching them.  “My grandmother, she had... but only just a few, not near so many... and these – you did these all at once, didn’t you?  They happened all at once?”

She shot her eyes up and Stiles jumped with a nod.  She inspected his arm one last time before letting him go.  “Fresh, too,” She observed before barking out,  “Luke, strip the boy and bring him to me.  Leave his boxers on, but be _thorough_ this time, will you?”

The guy named Luke was thorough, taking everything he could off of Stiles and stacking it all into a neat pile while everyone present erupted with opinions and comments, no one standing on ceremony or even letting their Alpha leave.  Stiles realized they were all a family, or at least that was how they acted.  He guessed this was a lot like what Derek’s life had once been.

And the amazon bitch who was laying in on her Alpha and Mother about pulling Stiles out of play, Clarissa, she had the balls to have made those comments earlier about Derek loosing his family like she could ever even function without –  

Stiles glared at her with a sneer.  “Don’t get your panties in a bunch, angel.  The grownups have to talk, then you and I can finish this, okay?”  Please baby jesus, let him finish that.  He was starting to hate her enough that it _burned._

The Alpha took him by the scruff again and this time didn’t even have to squeeze much to get compliance from Stiles.  The whole almost-completely-naked-and-bleeding-everywhere-situation did take some wind out of his sails, he’d be the first to admit. 

Besides, something had changed.  Something big had changed, it was obvious from the way she ignored everyone, barging past them and dragging Stiles into the old house, slamming the door so hard behind her that it shook the house with a sound that was both out of place and comfortingly familiar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so happy you guys are enjoying this! Thank you for all the comments, sweetness and enthusiasm. It is soooooo much fun to have people I can share my excitement with during the process! You guys are wonderful.  
> : )


	8. that's what you're worth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Stiles looked right back. “So that’s it, right? You hand me over, you get your money. Sounds pretty simple.”  
>  She rolled her eyes, shaking her head and leading him down the hall. “Except it’s never that simple, is it?”_

The Alpha dropped Stiles unceremoniously on to a folding chair and started pacing furiously around him.  Stiles inspected his surroundings in order to avoid looking at her.  If he watched her he’d probably go through the roof with anxiety.  

There wasn’t much to see.  The house was bare and empty save for a few folding chairs and tables, a small lantern that filled the room with an LED blue glow, a cooler and a case of bottled water.  So.  Everything temporary, no power, no water.  This was not a place which was normally inhabited.  Which meant it was most likely going to be his new home for the time being.  Cold, hard and dusty.  Damp and moldy.  He’d rather take his bedroll and crawl under a bush than this.

Which brought to mind, “This where I’m sleeping? Can I have my stuff?  My bedroll and my pack?”

She nailed him with a silent scowl and Stiles rolled his eyes in response, stretching his legs long out in front of him and slouching halfway down the chair, arms crossed because if she didn’t want him to cover himself up she should have thought of that before she stripped him naked and dropped him in a metal chair.  

He held in a shiver, half from the cold and half from his adrenaline dropping, but she caught it anyway and raised a brow in slight surprise.

“Right.  Human.  Sorry, it’s been a while.  Come with me.”

She led him to the kitchen, the only room that had been scoured clean.  The white tile gleamed in the corpse-blue shiver of another high-power LED lamp.  The light also glinted off the polished metal and glass of medical equipment.  The kitchen had been turned into an ER, but he guessed that made sense.  

Some people might have wondered why werewolves would need medical bays.  Those were people who had never had to watch a poorly-healed unclean wound  fester out an infection.  It was like time-lapse wound-porn, and from the looks of it hurt like a bitch.  If the infection got into the bloodstream, the werewolf might even pass out for a minute or two.  They didn’t need to be stitched up, but when a wound was bad, cleaning it and protecting it was a hell of a lot better than puking from the stench of your own wound.  Easier just to hold back on the healing, clean the wound, and then heal up clean.

So they definitely had wound wash.  Trouble was– 

Stiles’ vision momentarily whited out from the searing burn and ice cold that washed down his whole body as the woman hosed him down with something that felt like pure rubbing alcohol.  Yeah.  The trouble was that whatever they cleaned their wounds with could really, really hurt.

He tried not to let it out, but a sob slipped out of him when his body was wracked with yet another shiver.  The Alpha looked at him and clucked her tongue as she dabbed him dry.

“There, now.  You’re doing just fine.”

He doubted her sincerity, but was grateful nonetheless when she handed him a set of scrubs to wear and walked out to let him change alone.  He didn’t dare touch anything, Stiles knew she could hear every rustle in the room, but tried to take stock of his surroundings while he striped out of his boxers and pulled on the blessedly dry and clean clothes.  She’d even handed him a lab coat, so yay for warmth as well.  

Stiles pulled the door open to find her standing in the hall, arms crossed, looking at him with a scowl that rivaled Derek’s.  Her voice was heavy and low.  “You know what this all adds up to?  Twenty-six thousand dollars.”  She raised her chin and locked his eyes on him.  “That’s what you’re worth.  Or at least, that’s what the Hale pack thinks you’re worth.”

Stiles looked right back.  “So that’s it, right?  You hand me over, you get your money.  Sounds pretty simple.”

She rolled her eyes, shaking her head and leading him down the hall.  “Except it’s never that simple, is it?”

He couldn’t tell where this was going, but it was making him uneasy.  “Why complicate it?  Just show me a bed, lock me up and I’ll be history in no time.”

“Believe me, I’d like nothing better.  You are nothing but trouble in a pretty package, and god knows the last fucking thing I want to deal with right now is a teenaged boy.  But.”

Yeah, she wasn’t going to let it go.  The way her gaze was drilling into him left Stiles cold in a way that no parka or blanket could touch.  His heart started racing.  He felt no need to hide it.  “But?”

“But then there’s this.”  She says, gesturing in his general direction, then leaning in to inspect a tattoo more carefully.  “Every single one of these is... big.  A big deal.  Big magic.”

Stiles eyebrows shot up.  That, he had never heard.  The way that Deaton led him in, the way he taught him, telling him where to find his own answers after little more than a brief introduction, it seemed so _casual_.  He cleared his throat, but it still came out a squeak.

“Big magic?  I don’t know what–”

“Yeah, I get that.  Anyone with any sense of proportion would not have done _this_ to himself.”  She was pointing at the rail-like lines inside his arms, “Unless he was unbelievably desperate.”

Stiles didn’t bother to hold back the way his heart spooked when she looked back in his eyes.  He didn’t break eye contact, didn’t hide what he was feeling, even the sudden sense that smothered him like it had in the motel room, that he was in way the fuck over his head.  Had been for a very long time, and that wouldn’t be such a bad thing (might have even been a good thing, might have been a rush that would keep him high for days) if it weren’t for the fact that he was alone.  Would always be alone.

She tilted her head, her look going speculative.  “Just how did you get yourself so far down the well?”  She turned, leading him into a den-like space.  “There’s not a lot of good reasons to get so far so young,” she continued, sitting on a simple wooden bench and motioning him down.  “And this stuff isn’t the flashy stuff.  No, this is the work of necessity.”

She ended that sentence looking at a small tattoo on his neck below his ear.  It covered what looked like a tiny knick.  It was a tiny cut, but the poison in the cut took him down and nearly killed him.  

The tattoo over it had kept him in stasis (Stiles still thought they should call it a magic-induced coma, but no one ever listened).  He survived with a nearly undetectable pulse until they could get him a blood transfusion.  All of his blood, pulled out, replaced.  Stiles would say the event was tied in second place on the list entitled ‘How Close to Completely Dead Can You Get?’ (Everyone had a list.  He’d even made little bound books of them for Christmas one year, with stick figure diagrams of each event.)

He wanted to beg her to stop, to let him sleep, to leave him alone, to leave _it_ alone, but at the same time wanted to hear anything this woman had to tell him now that the posturing nonsense had ended.  He just didn’t want to have to respond.

“I don’t know who or what you think I am, but, I swear I’m nothing special.  This,” he said, vaguely gesturing at himself, “Is nothing special, it’s just–” 

“Necessity.  Like I said.”

She let the silence hang thick for a while.  When she finally talked it was soft, like she was thinking out loud.  “So I can’t help but wonder.  What kind of a world have you been living in that would bring that much necessity on a young human man?  I’d heard about the Hales, about the young new pack.  How the entire area had become unstable without a Hale presence.  I didn’t realize it had gotten that bad.”

That bad?  He was still alive, wasn’t he?  Of course, maybe that was the point.  Maybe it was _them_ and not the werewolf population in general that counted every day alive as a win.

The woman tilted her head back to him.  “Lines of contact _were_ open between us.  He contacted us about the bounty, after all.  So why didn’t he ever ask for help?”

Stiles shrugged, stifling a little smile.  “Derek’s not exactly the kind to ask for help.”  He felt like a jackass for feeling proud about saying it.

The Alpha raised one eyebrow and smirked back.  “See, originally I figured it was that sweet little mouth of yours that got you into twenty-six thousand dollars of trouble, but its not that at all is it?  You were pack– you _are_ pack, yet you shot one of your own and ran away.” 

She stood up, pacing again, and Stiles took the opportunity to lay flat on the bench, legs on either side, feet tapping a quick rhythm.  “That act alone should be enough to explain the bounty and the magic.  A missing limb demands a very serious redress, and running to avoid that could use some careful planning, couldn’t it?”

Stiles shrugged as she sat back down at his knees.  Her eyes were gleaming like she’d figured something out.  “Except when you know _that_ much magic, you’d probably put your efforts toward becoming untrackable.  And when you’ve seen _that_ much action, you wouldn’t need blood magic telling you what to do next.”

Her voice lowered into something more urgent as she leaned in over Stiles.  He did his best not to slide right off the bench to get away.  “So then it doesn’t make sense.  Unless it didn’t happen in that order.”

She straightened up a bit but raised his sleeve and ran a finger up and down Stile’s arm, this time making contact.  He couldn’t look away from her finger as she asked, “Which came first, Stiles?  These, or the shotgun?”

He grit his teeth against an answer and shook his head once, hard, pulling his arm away and sitting up.  This time he was the one with the scowl.  It’s _pack business_ and she should know that, should know better than to push.  Should expect that he wasn’t going to talk, and stop pressing, because he was getting really, really close to breaking down and destroying every last shred of dignity he had left.

But she didn’t push.  She watched him sit, watched the way he looked her in the eye and held his jaw tight.  After a moment she nodded, her look of approval evident. 

“Whatever else, you’re a strong pack–”

It was Stile’s turn to interrupt with a snort.  “I don’t know what you’ve been hearing, but it’s barely what you would call a pack, and I am not a member of it.”

She pointed down the vee of his scrubs, where the corner of his elephant mandala was peeking out.  “This says otherwise.  And what I’ve heard tell is that your borders are now well defended.  I hear that not many who wish ill to the Hale Pack come out alive.”

Stiles rolled his eyes.  “Just about all we manage to do well is defend our borders. I think we all just got sick of the bullshit and decided that whether or not we liked each other, we could learn how to fight together so all the fucking dregs of the supernatural world would stop thinking we were easy pickings.”

Weird.  She was smiling fondly at him now.  “That’s about all a pack as fresh as yours could ask for.  The rest takes time.  Takes growing up.  Takes learning how to ask for help.”

Stiles snorted again.  “But you really mean that, don’t you?  About the being willing to help?”

The woman nodded.  “Established family packs without border disputes among the Were, we help each other out.  Your pack may be young, but your lands are established, your borders are not in dispute, so why shouldn’t your neighbors help?  A blight on you eventually becomes everyone’s problem, anyway.”

Stiles looked out to a spot on the wall and hated himself for betraying them, but keeping it a secret would only make things worse in the long run.  “And what would you say if I told you that your neighbor was consorting with hunters?”

“I’d thank you for keeping Gerard Argent the hell out of our hair.  As long as you aren’t using them to attack other packs, then who you consort with is your funeral.”  She nodded to a cot in the corner of the room.  “Put the cot where you want it, and there’s extra blankets in the plastic tub.  Water’s over there, too.  Latrines are outside.  Get some sleep.”

Stile’s head spun with the sudden change of conversation until he heard the racket of a whole bunch of wolves invading the house, most preparing to leave.  The Alpha let herself out without a second glance.  A while later someone tossed a protein bar at him.  After that, no one else came to visit and the house got quiet.

His head spun and if it weren’t for the kind of day he’d had, he wouldn’t have been able to get to sleep.  As it was he dreamt in unfinished formulas and riddles.  Fevered dreams that were just shy of nightmares, that didn’t make him feel any more rested and had him twitching.  Stiles nearly threw himself out of the cot when a cold hand landed on his mouth.  His eyes slammed open, but he calmed once he could focus on the Aplha's face.  She held a finger up and shook her head slowly.  When he nodded in response, she let go of his mouth and motioned him to follow.

 

Stiles slid into the cold night and the woods, taking in a slow deep breath as he followed her into the bush.  He’d run if it looked like she was going to take him back inside, but while he was out, he was as good as free, and he wanted to know what she was up to.  He was holding out for his backpack.  Stranger things had happened. 

She led them a ways down a trail to a spot where a creek hit a dip and cascaded down.  The stones around the spot were well worn, perfect rocks to sit on.  So.  This was how werewolves in an extended family pack unit had a private conversation.  He could see the sense in it.  When he looked carefully, he realized the ledge in the stream was a man-made wall of stones, making a pool in the other side which looked just like a hot tub.  It was Stiles’ firm opinion that he should have gotten a reward for not making a board-member meeting joke.

But he was good, sitting next to her instead and tilting his face in close to hers as she began to speak.

“I know you’re not interested in talking, but here’s what I think.  I think you’re still loyal to your pack, and I don’t think your actions were an accident.  I think it started with what you saw with the spell, and whatever you saw was really bad.  Bad enough that carving up your own arms and shooting someone else’s arm off were rational choices.  I think I’d be an idiot to stand in the way of whatever storm you’re riding.”  She tossed him a set of keys.  “Those are Luke’s.  You picked his pocket when he stripped you and snuck out under everyone’s noses, probably using some fancy magic.  It’s the blue truck.  Your stuff is in there.”

Stiles stood gaping like a fish, keys gripped tight in his upturned hand.

The woman winked as she backed off.  “Just don’t let on that it was me if they catch you.  There’s no way I could deal with the fucking whining if they found out I cost them twenty-six thousand dollars.”

Just so happened that it was the truck closest to the road.  It was even facing out.  Stiles eased into the truck and called up some sort of a sound-baffle to at least alter the sound of the engine.  Not checking if his magical shot landed, he turned the ignition and would have cried if he hadn’t felt the reverberations under him.  He revved the engine and watched the tachometer rise and fall with his foot.  But holy fuck, he could not hear a thing.

He must have jumped a few skill levels when he wasn’t looking.  The last time he’d tried it, the Jeep ended up sounding like a chainsaw for about a week.  He had not expected total engine silence.  The only sound was the soft crunching of loose gravel under the tires as he eased on to the main road.

He dropped the spell a few miles down the road, relieved when the truck roared and his life stopped feeling completely surreal.  He drove the truck until the gas tank emptied out and left it on the side of the road.  He could have kept going, could have bought gas, even, since it seemed Alpha Mom had tucked a fifty in his pants pocket, but he’d be stupid to forget about the cop wolves.  

Now there was a BOLO for him in two states, and not as a runaway either.  First there was the whole barbecuing body parts with his Jeep, and now car theft.  Stiles wondered if the Boise PD would use his real name.  Maybe they’d just keep him a john doe so they could keep it under the radar.  Stiles wondered what would happen if he walked straight into the police office and told them his name.

He might do that at some point.  But for the moment he’d just reaffirmed his desire to live free, and every police officer in the state would Be On the Look Out for a hitchhiker sharing his physical description. 

Looked like it was time for plan B.  He slid off the road and into the tree line.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And another useless little fact that didn't make its way in: The Alpha's name is Ariadne.
> 
> find me on tumblr: http://vendettaleewrites.tumblr.com/


	9. all the things that hadn't sucked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Seriously, if he was going to keep bleeding on everything, how was he not supposed to be found?_   
>  _He considered, for a brief and calming moment, the possibility of walking through a set of mental hospital doors. He could just start talking, and they’d be more than happy to find him a bed. It would be warm. He would be well fed. He’d probably even have access to a shower._

Plan B was riding the rails.  Stiles should have been excited at the prospect of going full-on hobo, but he really wasn’t.  He’d heard too many stories on the street about it by then to feel anything other than a sinking in the pit of his gut.  It was just dangerous, you never knew what kind of psycho you might get stuck sharing a boxcar with for hours on end or when that rail yard bulldog cop would find you and beat the crap out of you.  He’d seen Dateline and 20/20 documentaries about it.  

And then there was the stuff he heard on the street that he’d never even considered, like getting stuck in tunnels that lasted so long you could suffocate from lack of oxygen if you were too close to the engine’s exhaust, or dying of exposure from lack of preparedness, or getting on the wrong train and ending up cross-continent.  

Well, that last one wasn’t dangerous in and of itself, but could be difficult if you thought you were going to Texas and wound up, say, in California, where there was surely a warrant out for you by now.  For cutting someone’s arm off.  Was that assault?  

Stiles couldn’t figure what they’d charge him with.  He wondered if Peter had walked into the Sheriff’s office to file a missing arm report.  Okay, maybe he didn’t actually wonder, but he did picture it.  And because he was a sick bastard who thrived off the torment of his enemies, it made him giggle maniacally every time he did.

He had aimed the truck roughly in the direction of a little-known local switching yard that was  notoriously loosely guarded and thankfully the truck died close enough to reach but far away enough that it wouldn’t be obvious.  Except of course for the scent trail,  but he had a feeling that  the werewolves would wait till nighttime to track him hands-on.  Unless they took a bloodhound with them and only pretended to be following its lead.  He hoped to god that wasn’t the case because they’d incapacitate him without even using pepper spray, he’d be laughing so hard.

Stiles stopped at the chain link surrounding the train yard and slipped back into the thickest part of the treeline, following a deer path that led him to a tiny clearing, ground cover laid flat from the deer that had bedded down the night before.  

It seemed as good a spot as any to take a moment and lay down a few prayers for the whatever-the-fuck powers out there easing his passage, even though it was a given that in the long run it would all come to a bad end for him.  He was buying time, and he had gotten that.  Time for the pack to deal with the changes Stiles had brought on, time for Scott to finally lose any bond his wolf had with Peter now that his wolf could kill Peter easily.  

Scott had at some point decided he would replace his lacrosse fixation on a more useful talent – fighting and killing.  Not so many opportunities to keep scores, but he had turned into a beautiful vicious beast.  In their last hostile encounter, Scott singlehandedly took out a crackhead-crazy omega in less than thirty seconds.  

That had been about when Peter started looking nervous.  Nervous, then pissed and tense.  And finally, expectant, in the hungry way he started watching all the players in the room, like he had just woken up from a long sleep.  And _that_ was about when Stiles stopped the amateur snooping and dropping hints, coded a seeker spell into his most reliable search engine and went to bed.

The next day, the divining spell had been waiting for him.  It took him a few more days to work up the nerve to consider it, even bring it up with Scott, but he kept feeling this pressure like the air was getting heavier on his shoulders, and he knew that the talk he’d had was just to psych himself into it.

He hadn’t expected what he’d come up against.

But see, all that boyscout bullshit payed off.  He hadn’t _expected_ it, but he was _prepared_ for it.  That motto was the only reason he was still alive given all the crazy shit he’d come up against since Werewolves happened. He’d packed roughly three times as many nutritional supplements as he thought he’d need and packed medical supplies, feeling ridiculous for practicing his IV technique, knowing beyond a doubt that there was no way he’d need any of that.  He was only just going to cut himself a handful of times; it was a simple question he was asking.

The question being ‘what is Peter up to?’

The backpack, the skateboard, the bedroll were all there because he kept them in the car at all times.  The shotgun he’d brought because he was doing some hardcore shit and sometimes it attracted an unwanted audience.  He had run drills for The Duchess Jeep’s destruction.  It had all gone sideways and yet it had all gone according to plan.  Because he’d had a plan.

His life was much more simple now.  One plan.  Run.  For as long as possible. 

He laid down a piece of tarp and emptied his pack on it.  Took stock of what was and wasn’t missing.  There was a bowie knife gone, but it was a cheap knockoff he used to cut rope with.  Everything else looked about the same, all of the real weapons strange enough to be unrecognizable, his Banshee’s claw sitting right in the middle of the rest.  That was his weapon of choice.

Well, okay, technically the creature that had attacked them had not been a banshee at all, but a mess of feathers, scales, claws and teeth that Stiles had absolutely no name for (that happened far more than anyone realized.)  Stiles called it a banshee because it just wouldn’t stop screaming.  Seemed fitting.  It foretold its own death, after all.  But not before getting a claw stuck in Isaac’s femur.  Stiles had taken advantage of the moment’s distraction to toss a homemade incendiary, and that had opened the door for surf-and-turf carnage.

They had presented Stiles with the claw a few weeks later, when he had recovered from the flu-like symptoms of exposure to the creature's blood.  Allison had bound the bony part of it in hardened leather and attached it to a leather strap so that it could be both a badass piece of jewelry and a sick weapon.  It curved out from the grip for about a handspan and there was a leather cap on the tip of the curved claw so that when he wore it he wouldn’t cut himself to ribbons.  The thing was sharp enough to cut through bone, provided the bone wasn’t Quick Heal Werewolf Bone (patent pending) and was shaped in such a way that it was very, very hard to wrench out of Stile’s hands.  Without losing a hand in the process.

He slid the straps around his neck and snapped shut the quick-release magnetic clasp, feeling just a little more assured.  He slid more weapons and tools about his person and packed his goods back up.  

When he was done, he sat on a little mound and lit a cigar.  One of his own.  Mixed, aged, and rolled by his own hand.  It was a proprietary mix of shit that gave clarity and lit Stiles up with energy, making it easy to see and feel the flow around him.  He thought of all the things that hadn’t sucked in the past few weeks.

When he felt like he’d opened up his heart and found himself grateful for what he had, he pulled in a deep breath and blew out thanks.  That was all he had meant to do.  That, and lay around until the sun set, hoping he didn’t pick up any ticks.

Instead it was all he could do to slide down the mound and lay against it, watching his world pulse and waver until he was looking at something else entirely.

_Lights, coming toward him.  It was almost completely dark out, the train yard more slate and sodium-lamp orange than blue.  The oncoming lights were a train, slipping up to him with no sound whatsoever.  His view was cinematic, like a camera on a boom, hanging first in front of the tracks until the numbers on the train were seared into his mind, then floating up a bit, watching the train cars flow by.  They were a never ending line of boxcars, hoppers, tankers, all washed of color, grey and wet looking._

_Until a certain point.  Until a certain set of cars took on color, one boxcar in particular glowing.  Time slowed to a stop as that boxcar passed in front of him.  Both open doors of the boxcar were emblazoned with deep blood red glowing biohazard-on-a-gunsight-grid sigils.  Danger, the kind that kills you.  But no angry-electric-cloud (the kind you’d find kid-height near transformers all over the country).  So nothing supernatural.  Probably best just to take a pass on this train, regardless.  Except._

_Except for the gods inside the boxcar wrapped a gold glow.  Isis.  His queen, his one and only (don’t tell Lydia), his fairy godmother.  The chosen symbol for a particular type of god that stood for honor, love, loyalty, truth, justice, and he didn’t care if Athena would have been more apt, Isis was his boo.  She wrapped him in her wings as he slept.  He’d follow her anywhere._

_But when he looked at her companions, he swallowed dry and felt his heart rabbit while his blood sang in either terror or glory, he couldn’t tell.  On her shoulder, Raven.  At her hip, Coyote.  Two trickster gods,  two fire-thieves, two characters who liked to teach their lessons the hard way, just to remind you that you were still alive.  For whom your death might just be a part of the punchline.  They were gods, after all.  Stiles had nothing on them._

_He got it though, really.  Danger, bathed in blood.  Violent death, and by the size of those glowing sigils, a lot of it.  But it was Isis sending him there, for reasons of her own, with Coyote and Raven on his back, breathing down his neck, laughing at every near-miss and accidental hail-mary he tripped over._

 

He came back to curled in on himself, forehead on the dirt, nose bleeding steadily into the earth.  Fucking blood magic.  That was the thing about blood magic.  You tapped into it with enough earnest determination, and sooner or later _it_ tapped into _you_.  Deaton’s words, coming back to kick Stiles in the nuts.  Once again.  ‘Big Magic’ his ass.  Seriously, if he was going to keep bleeding on everything, how was he _not_ supposed to be found?

He considered, for a brief and calming moment, the possibility of walking through a set of mental hospital doors.  He could just start talking, and they’d be more than happy to find him a bed.  It would be warm.  He would be well fed.  He’d probably even have access to a shower.

He leaned back again, wiping his face clean, breathing deep.

He watched the sky and counted his breaths in sets of ten until the sky was nearly dark and it was _time_.  He could feel it like a pull, like a fishhook in his gut.

Ready or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ssshhhhhhh... just go with it, baby. ; )
> 
> (and for some reason it's bugging me to have to say backpack instead of just pack, pack meaning one too many things in this case and you crazy kids not needing the added confusion of my little "moments")
> 
> (yes, I have "moments." they tend to be grammatical. speaking of - no beta. as usual. but it means you get it fresher!)
> 
> by the way? you are all awesome and rock the catbox.


	10. a little prayer in his fist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, it ain't the land of the rock candy mountains and rivers made of gin, I can tell you that much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for attempted non-con, mayhem, and bloodshed. And possible spoilers in the note you just read. (sorry not sorry)

Even though Stiles knew he’d cleared worse jumps easily, even if he didn’t have cause to doubt his abilities and the train was moving at a walking pace, it was still daunting, jumping on a moving train.  But it wasn’t hard to find the right boxcar, it was lit up in his mind like a billboard. After chasing it a a slow jog for a minute, he managed to pull himself in, landing in a graceless sprawl.

Stiles took advantage of the fumble and rolled up to his knees clumsily, looking around cautiously, telegraphing that goofy kid he’d been before the Werewolf Crisis, setting his audience’s mind at ease regarding what kind of threat he posed.  He knew he had an audience, he had known he wasn’t alone before he hit the deck, but then he pretty much expected that, what with the non-consensual vision-quest he’d had hinting that he might have company.

He also knew someone was stalking him.  Too many years of being stalked for fun and practice had him developing a sense about these things.  Stiles let them come, hitching his breath to get his heart beating faster, calling up a fear he didn’t really feel.

It wasn’t long before he felt a hand on his shoulder pull him back and down, making him sprawl out on his back, his backpack digging into his back.  As the pack was swiftly pulled out from under him, another guy dropped to his knees in front of him, straddling Stiles’ thighs.  Stiles half-twisted, ignoring the man over him, reaching out for the pack with a shouted “Hey!” but he couldn’t even see where the thief had retreated in the dark of the boxcar.

The guy on top of him lit a flashlight, shining it in Stile’s face, making an obvious assessment of Stiles body as he called out into the dark, “Hey Spider, I think we caught us a tourist!”

He was laughing, a laugh that was echoed somewhere off to the side.  The man in the shadows called out, “He put a padlock on his pack, Grommet.  A fucking _combination padlock_ , can you believe it?”

All Stiles could make of the guy sitting on him, who was apparently named Grommet,  was a bald head and an ugly smile.  He sounded like he was about Stiles’ age.  Young and with the kind of fevered voice and sniff that gave away the meth he was probably high as hell off of.  Stiles wasn’t quite sure how he could use that to his advantage, if he even could.  He fucking hated tweekers.

He fought a little harder but didn’t try to unseat his assailant, let a little fear slip into the high crack of his voice.  “Give me back my pack, you bastard!” 

Grommet pulled Stiles’ face forward, gripping his chin, clearly pissed at being ignored. “Oh, don’t worry, buddy, we’ll give you back your pack.  But first you’ve gotta do something for me, all right?  Just open up, nice and wide.”  

Stiles heard the noise of a zipper, looked down to see Grommet unzipping his pants.  He never understood the wisdom of forcing your dick into someone’s mouth, given what teeth can do to flesh, but he was playing a part, so instead he widened his eyes and started shaking his head, nearly pulling his legs loose in one quick tug before the guy pulled him back under, sitting on his stomach this time, gripping his chin even tighter and leaning in close enough so that Stiles could smell the sour stench of a body eating itself.

“Uh-uh,”  Grommet said, “You’re not going anywhere.  I mean, look around.  Where you gonna to hide?  Train’s moving too fast to get off now.  And if you bite me, I’ll knock all your teeth out.”

Well, he supposed that answered that question.  Stiles shook his head hard, refusing loudly, wishing he had eyes on the guy with his pack and anybody else that might be there, trying to figure out how to incapacitate the guy and make it look like a result of luck and desperation, but he was mentally exhausted and out of adrenaline and his mind was just coming up with all the different ways he could kill the guy where he sat.  He had no idea what to do next when another voice cut through the fog in his brain.

“Cut it out, Grommet.  Leave him alone.”  Not freaked out.  Not even nervous.  Just annoyed and kind of bored.

“What fucking business is any of this to you, Bishop?  Go hide out in your corner if you’re too pussy to watch.”

Bishop answered, a little closer and with a bit more steel in his voice.  “It’s my business when you make it my business.  Christ, look at him, the kid’s probably a minor.  Even if nobody here cares about your games, I can tell you nobody here is looking to get locked up as an accessory to aggravated assault and sodomy on a minor.  So I’m not asking, idiot.  I’m saying.  Let him go.”

As he heard a couple of grizzled voices call out some sort of agreement, Stiles could see the remaining braincells Grommet had left fighting for a foothold.  He took the second’s distraction to shove the tweeker over and pull his legs out from under, standing up and backing towards where he thought Bishop’s voice was coming from.  He still couldn’t make out much, but his eyes were adjusting to the gloom.  

Bishop looked tall and thin, his face hidden under the brim of a leather cowboy hat.  He nodded at Stiles with a brief flash of a smile, and tilted his head towards what must have been his corner, where Stiles could see a very weak light coming from a small flashlight tossed on to an open dog-eared paperback.  

He didn’t move toward it, though, just cleared his voice and said, “I need my pack.”

Stiles did not expect it to come sailing at him and flailed spectacularly, fumbling with it on his way to the ground.  He wished he could have considered it a deliberate act, but he was clearly starting to fray, grateful for Bishop’s help in getting back up.

They sat down side by side, Stiles whispering “Do you think it’s really over?”

Bishop looked up in the general direction that Grommet had retreated.  “Depends on how much shit he wants to put up with.  I mean, he said it himself, it’s not like any of us are going anywhere.  Not much we can do about it if he decides you’re worth pissing a couple old timers and myself off, and there’s no telling when he’s gonna crash.”

The little flashlight provided enough glow that he could see the man more clearly, and for a second, something about him caught Stile’s breath.  Cinnamon skin and dark eyes that had a mesmerizing spark and a smile that made Stiles feel like they were the only two in on some eternal cosmic joke.  Stiles’ smile was shy in return, he could feel a blush rising and was momentarily stunned at the turn his mind was making in the middle of what was a dangerous and unsettled situation.  

But there was something between them, a tug, a spark, a magnetism, something a little bit like need.  He may have been imagining things, but he thought he could see it reciprocated in the way Bishop’s smile changed, the way he seemed to lean in just a little closer to Stiles, even while he shook his head and laughed to himself.

Bishop held out his hand after a second.  “So, I’m Bishop Tumbleweed.  Welcome to our boxcar funland.  You met two resident assholes.  There’s one more, his name’s Brick.  You didn’t see him ‘cause he prefers to lurk.  Somewhere in the dark over there is also Whiskey Pete and Lenny, the old-timers.  They’re okay, just keep to themselves mostly.  And that’s about it.”

Stiles shook Bishop’s hand and tried not to think about how soft it felt and how sure his grip was,  “Stiles.  Thanks for stepping in back there.”

Bishop shrugged good-naturedly, “No big.  Like to think someone else would do the same for me.  And I didn’t sign up for the gang-bang show anyway.” He gave Stiles a careful once-over and added. “Think I’m gonna crash.  Maybe you should too.  Not to be rude, but you’re looking run over.”

Stiles shook his head as his heart rate spiked.  “None taken, but you think that’s a good idea?”

Bishop shook his head with a laugh.  “What the hell else is there to do?  If they’re gonna come, they’re gonna come, and us being awake isn’t going to change much of anything.  Might as well get some rest where we can.”

Not the most sound logic, but Stiles couldn’t think of why because his brain had decided it was sick of all this shit and was shutting him down.  So, really, even if it was the dumbest move of all, he supposed there wasn’t much to it but to curl up with his head on his pack, letting sleep take him while he lay with his back to Bishop and gripped his banshee claw like a little prayer in his fist.

 

It was so predictable that it didn’t even come as a surprise when he felt arms drag him up out of a deeper sleep than he would have liked to have been caught having on enemy territory.  (Derek would have been pissed as hell, no doubt, if he’d have known Stiles would let himself get taken that ridiculously unaware, but it wasn’t like you could really hear footsteps over the clank and clatter of the speeding train, and it’s not like he wasn’t due some fucking rest for fuck’s sake.) 

But he came up calm and waited for the minute the guy holding him dropped his guard and loosened his hold.  At which point he dropped back to the ground, pulling the guy behind him down and throwing a knee up into his face.  The guy let go instantly and Stiles rolled away, barely missing getting hit by the gush of blood that was pouring from what must have been Brick’s busted nose.

Stiles guessed it was Brick because the guy was built like one, and Stiles was grateful to have put him out of commission first.  The guy next to Grommet, who must have been Spider, was all sorts of hard-drug rail thin nastiness.  He made a lunge for Stiles but Grommet called him back, setting his attention on Bishop instead.  Bishop who was still on the ground, looking hazy and addled, spitting blood and ducking the next punch Grommet threw.

But Bishop couldn’t duck much more of anything when Spider closed in and started kicking him.  Stiles jumped in, trying to pull the fuckers off of him and yelling at them to stop.  Which, surprisingly, they did.  But they didn’t back away.  

Stiles could see what was coming next from the nasty smile on Grommet’s face.  “Awww, look at the nice little tourist getting all worked up about his brand new friend.  You want us to stop?  Okay, we’ll stop.  But you gotta give it up if we do.”

Stiles ran a hand over his face and played out some sort of an internal drama he might have felt if he hadn’t come to terms with his lack of gender preference a long time ago.  When Grommet raised another fist and Bishop did little more than cower in response, Stiles held out his hands.

“Okay, okay, fine.  I’ll do what you want, but, but, you gotta leave him alone, okay?”

Grommet smiled even wider.  “Okay, yeah, sure kid.  Just make me happy, and we’ll all be fine.”

As if Stiles would trust that for a second.  He could see it in the bastard’s eyes, he’d made up his mind and he was planning on having a whole hell of a lot of Good Times for Grommet, with or without Brick’s assistance.  But maybe something like this had been the plan all along, setting something up that would have the green little tourist giving it up instead of having to force it from him.  And unfortunately for Grommet, the plan seemed to be working beautifully.

Up until he stepped up to Stiles and held a hand out to either touch Stiles’ face or grab his chin or ruffle his hair or something, Stiles would never know what, because before he made contact Stiles had grabbed him by the wrist, spun him around and slit his throat open, banshee claw cutting through flesh like a hot knife through butter, tilting him so that the subsequent blood spatter didn’t hit anyone.  (Because he’d watched too many true crime shows, and even if his dad didn’t much talk about these details, he knew what a bad idea it was to walk around with someone’s DNA all over you.)

Stiles let go and watched the guy fall like a sack of meat, which is all he was now, the Grommet his friends and loved ones knew (if such things had ever existed in the poor fucker’s life) was dead and gone, gone, gone.

Stiles had forgotten how delicate human beings were.  How easy they were to kill.  And how rarely it happened, even amongst these people.  He could guess that from the total silence that had descended, the stillness that practically poured out of every living person in the boxcar.  The shock.

Yeah, he’d definitely forgotten how normal people reacted to murder.

Even Bishop looked about ready to puke.

Ignoring everyone, Stiles dragged poor dead Grommet to the doors, traced some corpse-hiding sigils (oh, yeah, Stiles had come up with plenty of those) on the corpse in its own blood, and rolled it out into the desolate night.  He sat in the doorway, feet hanging over the side, and wondered if maybe he should just jump out, wondered if his own delicate human body could survive it.  He decided against finding out.  

After all, he didn’t want to leave his pack behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> But what I want to know is, what was Bishop reading?


	11. moving liabilities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Bishop had much more important things to puzzle out. Like why the hell he was chumming it up with the kid in the first place. After all, there were far better ways of keeping an eye on moving liabilities than making friends with them. Although maybe that went hand in hand with his other most important question, which was every who what when where and wherefore about the kid._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you aren't up on my lingo and my context clues are too oblique, a tweeker is a methamphetamine addict, rolling someone means attacking someone in order to take their belongings, and a maglite is one of those super-bright cop-type flashlights.

The kid that had come sprawling into the boxcar was unlike anything Bishop had ever seen before.  Not that he looked unusual, unless you counted the relatively clean hospital shirt and brand new jeans he was wearing, and he supposed that was unusual in and of itself, but not anything Bishop had never seen before.  But no, there was something else.  

Something in the way he was moving that was just shy of uncontrolled, the clumsiness that wasn’t, the face that looked scared but the eyes that told a different story, if you knew how to look, and Bishop knew how to look.  It had been a point of professional pride that he could spot these inconsistencies, back when he had considered the con his profession. 

After all, it was important to spot the other cons around you.  Sometimes that was more important than spotting the mark, because sometimes the mark was actually a con, and professionally, there was nothing worse for your reputation than getting played.  Not that it mattered anymore, really, since he was out of the racket for good, but hell, if a guy is running a scam while jumping into a train car, he’s probably the type of guy you want to keep an eye on.

It was a foregone conclusion (as Uncle Sam was so fond of saying) that the jackass tweeker trash that hopped in somewhere around the Oregon border would think the kid was nothing but an easy roll, but then those idiots were about as perceptive as slime mold, so at least it looked like the evening was going to get a lot more entertaining than the book he was trying to read.  He kept his book open for the sake of appearances, but kept his eyes on the show.

Except it wasn’t going down at all like he thought it would.  It looked like Grommet took one good look and decided he wanted a lot more than the kid’s stuff, and for some reason the kid was practically letting him get away with it, holding back in all the ways that counted, playing scared when he wasn’t, not of Grommet _or_ Grommet’s dick, not of Spider, not even of the unknown players he was trying to scan for even while he was being blinded by Grommet’s ridiculous maglite.  

Holding back, and that said something, because every good con knew when the jig was up and it was time to drop the mask, but all this guy was doing was looking tired and kind of confused, like he knew there was no way things were going to go down the way Grommet thought they were, but he hadn’t quite calculated the escape.  

And that seemed ridiculous, since Grommet was so close to the kid that an elbow to the throat would have settled matters, and this kid moved like he could handle himself, even if he was trying to hide it.  No fear, though.  Still no real fear.  Which meant he’d seen worse, probably been through worse and lived to tell about it, and could probably fuck the tweeker up dead.  And maybe that was the problem.  That, he’d seen before, and it suddenly all clicked.  The guy was trying to figure out how _not_ to kill Grommet.

Bishop wondered if the kid would go as far as letting the jackass choke him with his dick, and decided he really, really didn’t want to find out.  After all, even if he was retired he _was_  a professional, and the shit that little tweeker hooligan was pulling was not professional.  In any way.  It was also a Rule in the Family that you didn’t let shit like this go down.  Assholes who thought they had a right to stick their dicks anywhere they wanted gave criminals a bad name.  And even if he’d left the Family behind, this was one of those Rules he was of no mind to ignore.

So he stepped up, used the line that always seemed to work the best and made a hole for the kid to run through.  Which thankfully he did, more efficiently than he could have asked for.  It was amusing, too, to see him stand his ground and demand his things.  That pack must have been harder to get into than Spider had expected, he’d thrown it at the kid like he’d given up on the whole deal.  Or maybe he was pissed at Grommet for making everything go sideways, who knew?

And really, who cared?  Bishop had much more important things to puzzle out.  Like why the hell he was chumming it up with the kid in the first place.  After all, there were far better ways of keeping an eye on moving liabilities than making friends with them.  Although maybe that went hand in hand with his other most important question, which was every who what when where and wherefore about the kid.  

The first being his name, which, once learned, only brought up a hundred other questions.  None of which he was planning on asking outright, after all, he was a huge fan of context clues, and anyway it was a foregone conclusion that the kid wasn’t going to answer much of anything truthfully, and he’d rather figure it out himself than put up with being lied to.

Until he got an answer he hadn’t asked for far too suddenly as the v-neck of the hospital shirt shifted and he saw that _thing_ , that picture below his collarbone, the one he’d dreamt about so many damn times he could probably trace it with his eyes closed.  ( _“Pay attention, hijo.  You have to listen to those dreams.”_ Nan’s voice, old and papery and on the edge of dying, on the edge of leaving him and taking everything, _everything_ with her.)

Those dreams hadn’t been good. They hadn’t been bad, either, but he would wake up from them exhausted, with an ache in his heart, not capable of seeing much of anything other than those pictures, the one he saw now and the one he was certain was hidden under the shirt on the other side.  

So he was going to try and pay attention.  After all, he owed it to his dreams, they got him out of the trap the Family had become, saved him from growing old with nothing but the racket to hold on to, saved him from being sucked dry and buried by Uncle Sam and Aunt Mary who were, in the end, nothing but empty promises and selfish pain.

But this, this he was going to have to think about.  

Bishop had only meant to pretend to sleep, but the stranger’s heat pressed against his back had done something, lulled him somehow and sucked him into a sleep deep enough that he hadn’t woken up until the first punch landed.

 

And then there was the blood.  More blood than he had ever seen outside a movie, which made sense, because even though he’d seen a lot, he’d never seen a person murdered.

Then he knew.  Watching Stiles, the kid he knew nothing about, he still _knew_.  It was a road of blood and pain and glory he was looking at, and there was no way in hell Bishop was going to  turn away from it, even if it killed him.  Which, in every likelihood, it would.  He could practically feel his own death breathing down his neck as Grommet slumped to the ground and Stiles’ eyes met his.

This Stiles.  The real Stiles.  Clinical, but not cold.  Capable but very, very tired.  He wished, not for the first time in his life, that Nan was still around to explain things to him, but he had a feeling maybe she was a part of all of this, and if that was the case, even if she were there she’d just tighten her lips and make him figure it out for himself.

Out of respect, Bishop tried not to watch Stiles dragging the body away, tried not to feel ill at the sight of the kid drawing pictures on the corpse in blood, tried to ignore the urge he felt to sit next to Stiles as he watched the ink-black-on-velvet landscape slide past.  And tried very, very hard not to listen to the fear and cold in his belly which told him that this was the kind of dangerous animal he should never ever trust with anything, let alone his heart, let alone his life.

But it was kind of late for that, wasn’t it?  After all, as far as he could tell, it was well nigh likely that that animal had done what he did for Bishop’s sake alone.

And if that was the case, then what did that make Bishop?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My first inclination is to say Bishop's mysterious book was Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pinchon, just to be difficult. Alternatively, maybe it was The English Patient by Ondaatje, but that's mostly because that book and I have road history of our own.


	12. every man has his weaknesses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sometimes you just need a moment to breathe

He lasted a while, but Bishop knew that eventually he would break and go sit down next to the kid.  He tried reading, but it was completely pointless.  He checked his injuries, fucked around with his pack, finally just gave up, grabbed all of their gear, dropped it close to the door and sat down with his back against the door at the edge, close to where Stiles was looking out.

He tucked his flashlight in one armpit and rummaged in his coat for his tobacco, pulling it out and rolling a cigarette in silence, letting Stiles talk if he wanted to, let him figure out what the thing to say was at this moment, because Bishop had no clue what it might be.

Stiles cleared his throat as Bishop lit his cigarette.  “So, what are you the Bishop of?”

Bishop squinted a little, pulling in a drag and holding it for a second before he answered.  He exhaled lazily, trying to decide if he wanted to humor the guy or call him on it.  “Not a Bishop.  A Tumbleweed.”  He’d let it slide, for the immediate.

Stiles squinted at him, a little irritated, a lot curious.  “Wow.  Cryptic, much?  What are you, a secret agent?”

Coming from anyone else that would have sounded decidedly bitchy, but this kid, the way he smiled, the way he leaned back on his elbows and looked over, he was amused.  In an intrigued decidedly non-bitchy way.  Friendly.  Very well played if it wasn’t, but Bishop had a feeling that this guy was being genuine.  Which, well, given the circumstances...

Who the fuck was he kidding?  There was absolutely no way he was going to be able to let it slide.  At all.

“There’s a metric fuckton of Tumbleweeds out here.  There’s only one that comes from Bishop.”

“Bishop?”

“California.  Shithole little meth town out in the middle of the desert.”  Okay, sure, to those with means, maybe it wasn’t such a bad place.  He just knew what he knew.  “And anyway, what was that shit with drawing on the body?  Is this what you do?  Run around, killing people and drawing on them?  Are you a serial killer?”

Stiles was looking back outside.  His answers were quiet but rang perfectly clearly in Bishop’s ears.  “Not _people_ , for the most part, no.  And I wouldn’t say ‘serial killer’ so much as ‘psychopathic murderer’, maybe.  Not delusional, though.  That part’s important to know because when I tell you that the drawing was camouflage that’s exactly what you’re going to think.”

Yep.  That was pretty much _exactly_ what he thought.  _Except for the flash of a thought, a memory, the sound of crows and the smell of blood._   If there was one thing he had learnt is that most of what people said might not matter, but listening carefully did.  

“Camouflage.”

Stiles rolled his eyes, like that was exactly the part he was trying to avoid.  He _wanted_ Bishop to think he was crazy.  Bishop could understand that.  You could hide a lot of shit behind that ‘ignore me I’m just nuts’ racket.  People tended to ignore and not question crazy people, they did what they did and said what they said because they were crazy, no deeper searching necessary.

But Stiles nodded reluctantly and fiddled with his fingers as Bishop smoked and squinted at him through his own haze.  “Camouflage.  Make the body hard for people to notice.  Maybe roll into a ditch or under a bush.  Also anointed him with oil that will bring the bugs around much faster.  A lot of bugs.”  His eyes got momentarily distant and he shuddered a little.  “A lot.”

Bishop nodded once, took a quick breath to ask another question, (or the same question in a different way) but Stiles talked over him.

“Look. There’s a lot I can’t say, I won’t say, and I don’t want to say.  And more than likely there’ll be more of _that,_ ” he pointed to the floor still sticky with blood, “wherever it is I’m going.”  He paused, like he couldn’t catch his breath, “So I’m a selfish fuck for even thinking it,”  a shake of the head and a little laugh, “but, if you could use the company, I wouldn’t mind... That is...”

Bishop looked at Stiles.  Really looked at him.  The fluid grace with which he rested on his elbows, one leg still hanging over the side, the other pulled up, foot tucked against his knee.  Confident.  Not cocky, at all, just aware of his body and his power and what he could do with it.  Bishop felt a tightening of his scalp and a shiver into his gut that said yeah.  Oh yes, he wanted.   

Their eyes caught and Stiles’ breath hitched for a moment.  Something in Bishop’s heat must have come through nice and clear, and thankfully his read on Stiles was true.  Stiles got the idea.  And while he might think it’s a nearly suicidal idea – Bishop could see that, caught a little desperate laugh of a wheeze and a crazed spark in Stiles’ eyes before he started shaking his head slowly in disbelief but not refusal – Stiles was clearly not going to say no.

It had Bishop leaning back against the door, wide smirk on his face, taking a slow drag off his cigarette.  Stiles started out moving slow, but swung in a smooth arc around Bishop until he was sitting between him and their gear, pulling the cigarette out of Bishop’s hand and taking an experimental drag.  

Bishop whipped it back out of his hand and growled “Don’t think I’m gonna fucking feed you, asshole.”

Stiles laughed, high and bright, taking the cigarette back almost before it was offered.  “Yeah, I think I can manage that one, don’t light your bitchy little pants on fire on account of me.”

Bishop thought maybe Stiles didn’t even know what that meant, but it was perfect, and they were suddenly exactly where they needed to be.  They rode into a pale dawn in a comfortable silence.  Stiles pulled out a bag of pork rinds and smirked as they shared the whole bag.  Bishop might have refused on principle, but they were pork rinds, and every man had his weaknesses.

Sometimes it was just like that.  Sometimes you sat down with a person and who you were before that moment and who you would be after that just didn’t fucking matter, not to either one of you.  You were just there and it was nice and you were not alone, you were understood and you understood them, and all those other details like words and mass murder and delusions and running from the Family meant fuck all when held up to the light reflecting the pale sky in those eyes, framed with dark lashes on a pale face, looking, _seeing_ Bishop and smiling in recognition.  

Deep in his chest, Bishop shuddered once and then felt as though his body was loosening from the inside out, warming.  His breath grew deep and he let himself lean into Stiles.  

This, this wasn’t going to last, Bishop knew that.  But there was never any harm in taking the moment that’s given to you, either.  Stiles matched Bishop’s weight against him and both of them dozed in and out until the heat of midday and the slowing of the train shook them awake.

You took it where you could.


	13. like fucking catnip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Stiles was perfectly willing to admit to himself that he had it bad. He would also be completely understanding if his brand new friend had a no-sex-with-mass-murdering-serial-killers rule. Up until relatively recently, Stiles would have had one of those, too._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and I quote wikipedia:
> 
> "Frot is a slang term derived from frottage (ult. from the French verb frotter, "to rub") describing a form of non-penetrative male/male sex that usually involves direct penis-to-penis contact."
> 
> Yep. Here there be penises. So if you're not into that sort of thing, you might want to get off at this stop and pick up at the next one. You're not missing much, just that they're heading South from Cheyenne and having some healthy outdoor man-on-man country lovin'.  
> (I say it's country because 1-it's in Wyoming, 2-it's outdoors, and 3-well, it's in Wyoming.)

The guy had guts to come back and talk to him, Stiles would give him that much.  And remarkably short patience for bullshit, a trait Stiles could always appreciate in a man, considering that ninety percent of What Stiles Was amounted to complete bullshit.  Honestly, it had gotten so that he couldn’t be bothered to tell the truth if a lie would do.

And, oh, the way the guy could see right through him.  It lit Stiles up inside and he _burned_ for it.  Like a moth to a flame.

Most of what Stiles had dealt with in his life lately were known quantities or soon-to-be-dead ones.  He hadn’t ventured all that far from the pack, from his work with Deaton, from his dad, and most of those people didn’t even see him when they looked at him anymore, they just saw what they had decided he was a long time ago.  So usually he lived in this perfectly comfortable world where people thought he was this goofy kid who might never grow up, and he didn't bother to drop the act around his casual hookups and friends.

 

(Derek saw through it.  He would shake him and knock him into walls as if that could get him to stop the act.  Stiles would grin and run at the mouth and it would piss Derek off to no end, and oh holy fuck was that like fucking catnip.  He would push and dig and fuck around until Derek had him pinned against a wall.  Stiles would be half-hard and not giving a damn that Derek could probably smell it, that he could definitely feel it on that hip he was pinning him to the wall with.  His game had no shame.

He would tilt his head back and laugh a high and breathy groan and Derek would ease off with a wicked carnivorous grin on his face.  It would never go farther than that, and Stiles never pushed it, but there was something there.  Whether the chemistry they had was healthy or not, if they took the cap off that one, it was going to be big.  Which meant that if everything went wrong (which pretty much, if it was a part of Stiles’ life, it would), it would go wrong spectacularly badly.

Given what Derek had to lose, Stiles didn’t blame him for not pushing.  Mostly he’d roll his eyes with a smile or use Stile’s unending lust against him.  Which, well, given it was turnabout, Stiles didn’t blame him for that either.)

 

But now there was this Tumbleweed, sitting in a train car somewhere in the Rockies, mountain peaks inking the blue-black sky outside.  Bishop could _see_ him.  Sure that sounded corny as fuck, but it really wasn’t.  He was sizing Stiles up, constantly, smirking at him as if to remind him that he wasn’t buying any of it but he’d play along to humor Stiles.

Picking up with Bishop was stupid, he knew.  If there was a list entitled Bad Ideas this one would be up there around Coach In A Leotard.  But, oh, Stiles loved some of those bad ideas.  Especially when they might include those eyes raking over his naked body and those sure hands holding him down.

Stiles was perfectly willing to admit to himself that he had it bad.  He would also be completely understanding if his brand new friend had a no-sex-with-mass-murdering-serial-killers rule.  Up until relatively recently, Stiles would have had one of those, too.

It was good regardless.  It was remembering he was human.  The night sucked a hell of a lot less than he thought it would.  In fact, it didn’t suck at all.  The old timers were crouching by the door looking out at the morning landscape as the train slowed, and Stiles still felt as though the sun had only just risen.

Bishop sat up straighter and rasped “Is it time?” in a sleep-stained voice.

The two men were uniformly the color of dirt, creased and wrinkled but sharp-eyed as they took Stiles in and looked back at Bishop, one of them finally nodding once and answering.  “Uh-huh.  This here’s Buford.  Switching yard in Cheyenne is a few miles up ahead yet, but there’s a switch coming where you can catch a ride going South.”  He gave Bishop another hard look.  “That is, if you’re still going South.”

Bishop nodded, not checking with Stiles, and Stiles was oddly grateful for it.  Bishop was willing to set terms.  He was making it clear, he was going where he was going and Stiles could come along or not, which also made it easy to leave when it was time to split up.  Because who was he kidding, there was no way this was going to last, no way he wanted it to last if it meant keeping Bishop safe.  So Stiles was going to take his chances for a minute and beg that the universe protect Bishop from getting sucked into the supernatural, because that was one spell he had never even thought of looking into.

They slipped off easily, the train having slowed to a crawl long before reaching Cheyenne.  They followed the spur they’d just seen splitting off, and not surprisingly, no one else got off with them, even with all the blood on the floor.

Once the train was lost behind them, it was tracks going South, grassy plains, turbines, wind, and sky.  A whole hell of a lot of brilliantly blue sky.  Stiles was momentarily stunned by the quiet after they left the train behind, not having realized how much the constant rattle and shake had started to invade every corner of his brain.  

“So, when is this train coming?”  He tried not to let show how unenthusiastic he was about having to get back on one any time soon.

Bishop turned, walking backwards in  font of him.  “No idea.” Grinning like he knew just what Stiles had been thinking.  “Could be days.  And we’d have to figure out where it’s going to slow down to get on it, too.  It could take a long, long time.”

His voice was deeper than Stiles had realized, melodic and smooth.  And the grin sliding on his face was liquid sex enough to make his blood rush with an ache to his very bones.  

Stiles ran a hand through his hair and let out a frustrated groan.  “Look, if you’re just fucking with me here, or I’m getting the wrong idea, I need to know now, because honestly it’s been a long time–”

Embarrassment was one of Stiles biggest weak points.  It blinded him enough that people could slide up to him like Bishop did, slipping an arm around his back and taking advantage of his stunned silence to grab on to the back of Stile’s neck and lick his way into Stiles’ mouth.

It was a vulnerability that Stiles hadn’t ever properly appreciated until he was gasping and they were trying to devour each other.  Bishop held Stiles' head perfectly still with the grip on his neck and he felt a delicious shiver run through him, the hand at his back pressing him firmly in so their bodies pressed together.  Stiles bucked in response to Bishop rolling his hips and Bishop groaned deep, a good food groan Stiles could feel resonate against his chest before he leaned away and let go of Stiles.

Stiles tried to make clear how not on board with the plan of stopping he was, but the only sound he managed to make was a sad little whimper.  Bishop moved behind Stiles, leaning his head over Stiles' shoulder and pointing to a green spot in the distance.

“There,” he said, rubbing the heel of his other hand over the hot bulge in Stile’s jeans, pushing Stiles back into his own hard cock.  “We’re gonna wish we were walking naked by the time we get there.”  Bishop laughed, and Stiles had no idea what that meant.

Until they weren’t even halfway there and he was so hard his cock was rubbing painfully on his zipper and he was starting to leak precome into his briefs.  He knew Bishop wasn’t fairing much better, they were both teasing each other mercilessly as they tried to walk through the grassy terrain, neither one breaking off from the other for long.  Following the unspoken rule of the unspoken dare, neither one of them was delving under clothing and it was driving them to a cussing, moaning and laughing high.

They didn’t make into the green patch, which was okay because on later inspection the green patch turned out to be a leaky water line, and the  soggy bushes around it wouldn’t have offered much more than the grass in terms of privacy.  

And the high grasses were perfect, Stiles discovered, when Bishop turned Stiles bodily and pushed him on to the ground, growling “fuck it” and pressing his whole body down, sliding between Stiles’ legs and kissing hard.  Stiles spread his legs and raised  his knees, holding Bishop down by his ass and pushing up with long rolling thrusts until Bishop finally pulled enough braincells together to break away, eyes hungry and just a little desperate.

He managed to lift up onto his knees, fumbling shakily for his zipper.  “Don’t care how fuckable your mouth looks, kid, I am not coming in my pants.”

Stiles shucked his shirt and lay it down under his ass before raising his hips and shoving his pants down, grinning the whole time.  “Kid?  Who the fuck are you?  We’re practically the same –”

He had a valid thought, he really though he might have, except Bishop, pants around his thighs, pulled Stiles’ jeans down to his ankles and crawled back on top, pinning the jeans under his legs, trapping Stiles' feet so that he was knees up and only able to drop his legs open.  Stiles was done with thinking even before Bishop lowered himself again.  

Stiles’ mouth dropped open and eyes rolled back when they started to grind against each other again, mess of precome and sweat making them slick enough to slide against each other with a filthy squelch.

Bishop was holding himself up, watching Stiles as he thrust.  “See?  It’s that mouth.  Holy fuck, you don’t even...” 

Bishop cut himself off with a groan as Stiles’ bound and half-aborted thrusts got frantic, the trapped feeling of his legs dragging him beyond any reason, just please, oh god, and finally, when Bishop pushed one of Stiles’ hands down between them to grip both their cocks, just oh god thank you.

Stiles matched Bishop’s deep thrusts with his hand, twisting and palming their heads, spreading his hands wide and rubbing his fingers everywhere until it got to be so much that all he could do was hold on and feel it build, a blast of heat unfurling from his gut, running through him with a groaning shudder, leaving him pliable and half melted while he took the lasts of Bishop’s thrusts, sympathetic aftershocks running down his spine at the wet heat and shudder of Bishop coming apart and coming with a groan that almost sounded like a sob.

Their shit-eating grins matched and didn’t go away when they both sat up to set themselves to rights.  Stiles sacrificed his shirt for the cause and they used it to wipe up, Bishop checking his pants for any spills, ridiculously relieved when he didn’t find any.

Bishop looked up at Stiles who was watching him with one eyebrow raised, and Stiles could swear he saw a blush as Bishop ducked his head and answered.  “What?  I just don’t like the smell of it, okay, like when it gets old...”  

Stiles could hear so much more behind that, could see the turn things were taking and threw a twig, pinging Bishop on the forehead with it.  “Hey now, none of that.  We get it okay?  Bishop Tumbleweed does not like the funk.  The funk makes him sad.  Facts straight, let’s just move on, shall we?”

Bishop’s eyes widened with a startled glance for a second and then the tension around his eyes eased up a little.  Stiles couldn’t help but wonder, is this what his life was going to be, from killing to fucking to narrowly avoiding emotional breakdowns to god knows what?  Just pain, everywhere, and violence never letting up, brief blasts of sparkle dimmed out moments later by ghosts and demons both of the mind and real?

Sometimes he pretended that maybe he’d like his life to be a bit more common.

Of course, those thoughts didn’t last, not when he had a mouth that soft and a tongue that talented to fall into, even when it was the slow and sloppy curtain call for some of the best outdoor fucking Stiles had ever had.  They got back to walking, slow and easy, kicking stones, smoking and trading words, a surprisingly small amount of words considering Stiles’s and his love of wordsmithing.

It had been a long time since Stiles had been around someone he could trust his silence with.


	14. a bit of an understatement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Or maybe Bishop was just that good. Either way Stiles knew himself to be totally outclassed, and that was a feeling he hadn’t felt in a long, long time. It was kind of amazingly hot. And that right there was a perfect example of why Bishop might just be his complete ruination._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay. The penis-rubbing is over. It is now safe to get back in the pool. : )

Turns out there were markings along the tracks.  Every so often the ties had been cut into, where they were, how far they were from what, spelled out in a mix of abbreviations and symbols.  Bishop knew how to read them and hid a little smile while Stiles picked his brain about it, like maybe people didn’t ask him to teach them things too often, and it made him a little pleased and a little shy.

Stiles got that, and he thought it was cool and ridiculously adorable, but holy fuck this was a new language for him, new connections that could be charted, new ways energy could be harnessed and released.  His brain lit up at the idea of what train-derived symbols might contain, with their steady and relentless progress, indelible course and destination charted in steel, stone and wood.

If he spent a bit more time riding them, he could probably tap into that flow, make spells that weren’t too flashy but had a ridiculously hard _push_ and be nearly impossible to deter.  He sat down and pulled his notebook out of his pack.  It was actually a leather bound _thing_ that he would slide composition books in and out of, but it kept everything dry inside, kept everything safe in more than one way.

By the raised eyebrow and cocked hip Bishop had when Stiles’ finally looked up, the notebook wasn’t exactly impressive.  It was more like gruesome.  And okay, yeah, maybe leather was a bit of an understatement.  

His notebook looked like some movie prop, bleached buffalo hide scrawled on and carved into and burnt, strange looking bits of _stuff_ pressed and glued into it, dirt and oh yes, blood.  The blood of many creatures spattered and ground into it from the countless times he’d had to keep it out and open during one fucked up supernatural encounter or another.

Okay, sure, some people called this sort of thing a grimoire, but to call it that would just be the final blow in Stiles’ ‘I am not a witch, witches get naked and stand in a circle in the middle of their back yards just because it’s fucking Spring, like that doesn’t happen every fucking year’ campaign.  And _his notebook_ was full of all kinds of randomness, just like the other three completely filled composition books sitting on his desk at home, buried under and unnoticeable in the chaos. He wished he had those, too, but he’d pretty much memorized the most useful broad-spectrum stuff.  They were safest right where they were, anyway.

Stiles scrawled his notes and various symbols with a worn-down nub of a pencil, looking back at Bishop when he snorted as Stiles snapped the book shut.

“What?”

“That some freaky little spell book or something?”  He sounded just a little nervous under all the mocking cynicism, like he was worried maybe Stiles was batshit.  Never a good thing to start thinking _after_ you’ve gotten hot and naked with a guy.

Stiles snorted back, tucking his book away and straightening, wondering just what would happen if he told the truth, but decided against it.  They were just a little bit too far from civilization for that kind of awkward.

“Just a sketchbook, okay?  Doesn’t mean anything.”

But Bishop’s eyes were raking over Stiles, looking hard at all those tattoos, likely remembering the ones under his clothes, likely realizing that they were very similar to the ones on the book.  And he looked a little cold about it.  _That_ part, Stiles really didn’t like.

“It’s just some shit I draw, okay? I just–”

“You’ve got your secrets.” Bishop cut in, “maybe I’d like to know the truth, but I’m okay with you not telling me.”  Bishop took a step closer, wrapped one hand slowly in Stiles’ last brand new white T-shirt and pulled him forward.  “Doesn’t mean you get to talk to me like I’m some fresh little virgin mark waiting to be played.  You don’t want to answer, don’t.  Lie to me like that again, and I will leave you bleeding where you stand.”

Stiles felt a small jab and realized that Bishop was holding a knife up to his gut.  Stiles had been so wrapped up in the quiet voice and the heat in his eyes that he hadn’t even noticed.  Or maybe Bishop was just that good.  Either way Stiles knew himself to be totally outclassed, and that was a feeling he hadn’t felt in a long, long time.  It was kind of amazingly hot.  And that right there was a perfect example of why Bishop might just be his complete ruination.

Stiles nodded and swallowed, trying to get his brain to start thinking about things other than his dick.  Sweet Baby Jesus, it was like high school all over again, Derek looking likely to kill him and Stiles trying as hard as he could to just _stop looking at his mouth_. 

But he was a grown man and this was Bishop and Bishop mattered, what he was saying mattered.  So he gave the truth that hurt most to say out loud.  Maybe that meant he wouldn’t have to say he was sorry.  “I’m not going to let _it_ take you, too.”

When you had super-powers going for you, that world was yours.  If you were human and mixed up with that world, there was nothing but blood and broken bones, broken minds, broken souls, broken... everything.  And your friends wouldn’t, _couldn’t_ understand.  Eventually, like that kid that got stuck on the wrong side of the wall at the end of the Pied Piper, they left you behind.

There was probably more than one reason why running away came so smooth.  He had probably been half-gone already.

Bishop had already started walking. 

It took a little while, but eventually the awkward died down.

They rode to Denver, boxcar empty, Bishop mentioning that this was much more common, and that the crowd where they met was _very_ heavy.  Well, if Isis had to, she would have stuck an entire marching band in there to make things happen.  She was a god.  That was just the kind of things that gods do. 

They hit a diner before moving on.  It was a trucker’s diner and Stiles couldn’t think of a better use for Mama Wolf’s money than hot showers.  Bishop had money of his own, and it caught Stiles’ attention.  There were reasons other than poverty for a person to be riding rails, but the only real question was who the fuck was he running from that he had to run that far.  

They were so similar in that regard, and only now was Stiles really understanding the skepticism and caution which Bishop must be feeling about him.  It didn’t make him feel enlightened.  It made him feel like he could play like a champ but when it came to real relationships between real people, he was just never going to figure it out.  

He didn’t mind the awkward moments.  He did mind the way he could run right over people he cared about without even thinking about it.  It especially bothered him to know that he’d do it again in a heartbeat, because when it came down to surviving, other people’s tender egos were way on the bottom of the list of Things That Mattered.  And there hadn’t been a whole hell of a lot lately that hadn’t come down to surviving.

Hot shower and hot meal later, (frustrating fucking shower, but the lady behind the counter had already been giving him the side-eye and he could understand her feelings about the ‘one person per shower stall’ rule, given that she was probably the person who had to clean the things at night.)  ( _Best_ Salisbury steak ever, though, and he would admit that made up for it.)

They were sitting on the curb in the parking lot outside sharing a cigarette, warm, clean and full with the relaxed heat of a summer evening cooling around them.  Stiles wasn’t sure if spending the rest of his money on a motel room was the best idea, but it sounded kind of nice.  Bishop stiffened and flicked the cigarette onto the pavement when Stiles mentioned it.

“You can if you want, I’ll just find some bushes nearby.  Don’t like spending time in those little boxes.”  

In _that_ tone.  The ugly one Stiles wasn’t sure Bishop noticed.  The same tone he had when he was talking about the smell of stale sex, and well, those two things put together made an ugly picture Stiles wanted to steer Bishop well clear of.  Stiles hated ghosts.  The ones people carried in their minds he hated most of all.

So he nodded.  “Look, I don’t mind either way.  I’d sleep in a gutter if it meant sleeping next to your hot ass.”  

That got Bishop’s attention.  The goofy smile and eyebrow waggle got a snort and a shake of the head.  

It was the hand that Bishop snuck up to Stile’s shoulder to squeeze a little that said it all.


	15. smile and crook your finger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eyes wide, breath short, Stiles licked his lips and glanced up. “Can I?”
> 
> Bishop groaned back. “Oh, _fuck yes._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Webster's New American (or whatever) says:
> 
> "fellatio |fəˈlā sh (ē)ˌō|  
> noun  
> oral stimulation of a man's penis."
> 
> So there's that. But I put little asterisks before and after the naughty bits for those of you too faint of heart for this kind of thing. ; )

There was always a chance, when you stood close and personal and held a knife to someone’s gut, that things could go very badly very quickly.  There was a chance, but Bishop was gratified that he had read Stiles right.  It wasn’t that he had even been that pissed; it was human nature to lie, (if not to everyone else, then to yourself) but there was the need to place absolute boundaries on that kind of shit, and a need to make it crystal clear that he could see right through Stiles when he started acting like a carnie.

Well, so, okay, maybe he had been a little pissed at the assumption that he could be played like a chump, but it hadn’t lasted long.  And with the way Stiles had lit up at the threat, it was all Bishop could do to just walk away before his signals got completely crossed and the kid lied to him at every possible occasion because Stiles was, quite clearly and gloriously, a kinky bastard.  A kinky, ridiculously appealing bastard he’d wanted to fuck into the gravel right then and there.  

So.  

Denver seemed like a good place to stop.  

Stomachs full and motel averted, they found a place deep enough in the bracken that Bishop could light a small fire, wanting to make up for keeping Stiles off a bed by making things a little more cozy.  It was a nice night, clear and cool with a view far into space, and they lounged with their heads on their packs, staring at the sky and sharing a bottle of Thunderbird.  

It had to be Thunderbird, according to Stiles, because “Hey, take a look around...” And Thunderbird was just about as bad as it had been made out to be, but somehow it did fit.  Not that he’d admit it.

Didn’t take long to start feeling warm and loose, resting shoulder to shoulder, leaning against each other, sharing stories with a lot of adjectives and pronouns but almost no names or identifying details, threading the specific and non-specific with the practiced ease of tobacco lobbyists and men in witness protection, but managing to make it fun anyway.

Stiles seemed a little more alive and a little more calm than Bishop had seen him before.  It was possible he might have even felt safe.  Bishop knew he certainly felt safer himself.  Of course, the Thunderbird probably helped with that, but he was going to take advantage, hoping maybe Stiles would be willing to talk candidly at least about this.

“So, sex with you...”  Stiles turned his head to look at him with a wicked smirk, but Bishop pressed on, “Does it always have to be... I mean, do you always like it rough?”

Stiles snorted a little and smiled wide.  “Seriously?  You sound like a fifteen year-old girl.  I’ve seen your dick, Bishop, you don’t have to be nervous about asking.  So do I always sub?  I’d say no.  It’s a kink, and even if being overpowered is _unbelievably_  hot, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be into getting flogged or anything.  I mean, I’ve felt plenty of pain and it's never got me hard.  Why?  Do you have to be in charge?  It’s okay if you do – I certainly have no complaints”

Bishop was already shaking his head, not knowing how to say it.  “No.  No, I don’t.  I like it, sure, but there’s times where I’m really better off not doing it.  There’s times where it’s just not safe...”  His throat closed up so tight he couldn’t say anything else.

Stiles just gave him a slow and downright indecent smile, shifting fluidly until he was hovering over Bishop.  “I think I can work with that.”

Bishop smirked up at him.  “Seriously, all I have to do is mention sex to get lucky with you?”

Stiles shook his head.  “Nah.  All you have to do is smile and crook your finger, handsome.  I’m easy like that.”  

“Are you now?” Bishop could hear heat in his own voice, could feel his body softening and heat pooling in his stomach.  

Still not pressing down, Stiles lowered his head and kissed Bishop.  It was like the night had been, comfortable, warm and slow, calling up slow flutters in his chest.

Stiles nodded when he came up for air.  “Yeah.  For you, I’m as easy as they come.  So why don’t you just lay back and relax?”

Usually when people said shit like that, Bishop would be reaching for the nearest weapon and scoping out all the exits, and from the quirky little smile in Stile’s eyes, he thought the same thing, like he knew how it sounded but wanted to say it anyway.

*

He had to admit, it was a little bit of a rush just to let go and relax, the heat in his gut turning into a slow fizz as Stiles worked his way down Bishop’s collarbone and worked their shirts off.  He kissed his way down Bishops’s chest, caressing, exploring, nipping and licking the spots that made Bishop squirm.  

He felt like Stiles was mapping out his body, finding all the secret spots and sensitive areas.  He also felt like he was exposing himself, letting all his weak spots show, and it was exhilarating.  He was completely hard before Stiles had even touched his belt buckle, and was oddly gratified when Stiles pulled him out and groaned at the sight.  

Eyes wide, breath short, Stiles licked his lips and glanced up.  “Can I?”

Bishop groaned back.  “Oh, _fuck yes_.”

Stiles ducked his head after another shit-eating grin and swiped his tongue up the length of Bishop’s cock, swirling, kissing and teasing the crown before finally wrapping his lips around it and taking him down, stroking the base with one hand in time with his mouth and using the other hand to drive him crazy, stroking his balls and sliding further, teasing everything his mouth couldn’t reach until Bishop was one coherent thought away from just flipping over and begging to be fucked.  

He was begging already, after all.  The bastard was timing things perfectly, taking it to the edge then backing off a little, waiting for him to loosen up before going in for the kill again, until Bishop was past thinking, past closing his mouth, letting out breathy little sounds that almost sounded like sobs.  

When Bishop was getting close for what must have been the billionth time and all he could say was ‘please’, Stiles finally took pity, speeding up and sucking harder, taking more of him in at every downstroke and constantly moving his tongue.  The sounds he was making were no less desperate than Bishop’s, like all he wanted in life was Bishop’s come in his mouth, and that was about all Bishop could take.  He came so hard it almost hurt, clutching Stiles head as he curled up around himself, trying like hell not to shove him down and hold him there and only partially succeeding.  

From the looks of it Stiles didn’t seem to mind, he was shuddering and coming into his own hand before Bishop could even let go of his head.  He fell back with a wordless groan and Stiles flopped over clumsily so they were laying side by side, neither one of them speaking or even moving for a while, just sort of warm and fuzzy-headed.

*

Eventually Stiles reached back into his pack and rummaged around, pulling out a packet of wet wipes and plopping it down between them.  He shrugged at Bishop’s raised brow.  “What?  I picked them up at the truck stop.  So you wouldn’t have to worry about the smell.  They’re scented, see?”

He’d been looking down, cleaning himself off carefully, and when he looked back up and caught Bishop’s eye his look was so open and genuine that Bishop had to catch his breath.  So, okay, truly it shouldn’t be such a big deal, Stiles being thoughtful, Stiles thinking of him. Stiles _caring_.  No in some huge personal way, just caring because it seemed like that was a thing he did.  

It shouldn’t steal his breath, but the truth was, Bishop could hardly remember people doing things for him just because, with nothing to gain.  He was sure his mind could argue and point out all the different ways Stiles could benefit from showing kindness to him, but that look in Stiles’ eyes told a different story.  It made him feel tender in an achy way and oddly vulnerable, but Bishop found all he could do was pull Stiles squawking into a bear hug and not let go until he cried uncle.  

It was alright, though.  Stiles looked flushed and happy when he got free, dropping down for a second to give him a hot and fast kiss before he got up to tend the fire and retrieve their unfinished hobo liquor.  They drank, lost track of time, laughed and talked until the edge of the horizon started to lighten up.

Stiles didn’t seem surprised at the sight, but he seemed a little relieved.  “I always sleep better when I go to bed at dawn.  There’s times I can’t sleep at all until I see light coming through the curtain.”

There was history and a dark intensity behind the lightness in his eyes.  Bishop took note, but didn’t pry.  After all, he wasn’t exactly free of dark thoughts.  He nodded in response, tucking Stiles against him on the bedrolls they’d laid out and covering them both with blankets.  

“I know exactly what you mean.”  Bishop said, soft and low into Stile’s ear.

Stiles didn’t seem to mind the closeness.  Maybe it was something they both needed.  Let the sun come, Bishop thought.  He’d deal with tomorrow however it got there.  Stiles was out in almost no time, Bishop soon after, with the realization that it had been a good while since he’d caught some steady hours of sleep.


	16. not in a good way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _If he had a record that could be noted on, Stiles would have liked it to be known that he had never ever been curious about what it felt like to be the bunny that two dogs were fighting over. For the record._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rough little flashback of coercion in here, so tread carefully.

Stabbing pain ripping through Stiles’ skull pulled him out of sleep so fast that he was on his feet and scrambling before he’d opened his eyes.  As far as spidey-senses went, this one sucked dick, and not in a good way.  On the other hand, it did have enough force to wake him out of the deepest drug-or-exhaustion-induced sleep possible, and really, what was the use of an early warning system that you could ignore, anyway?  Klaxons always worked best when they nearly gave you a heart attack.

Mixed with the cheap liquor, though, it had an added punch that left him puking in the bushes a few feet away from their bedrolls, where Bishop was mumbling half-coherent questions, trying to wake himself up as well.  Stiles didn’t bother answering.  He didn’t get this kind of a wake-up call if it wasn’t time to act fast.

He wiped his mouth and started humming a quick incantation, trying to trace the origin of the threat, and was jarred by another stab of pain right before the incantation went sideways and something pulled him into a deep trance so hard it felt like being dragged backwards by something with wicked sharp claws dug in bone deep.  

Wonderful.  He’d worked himself right into a trap.  Not that he’d been an idiot in the first place; a fuckload of skill was required for someone to backtrace a location spell, and he had no reason to suspect that kind of ability from any of the major players in this installment of “Let’s fuck up Stiles’ life.”  

And that right there was the crux of the problem.  It wasn’t anyone he suspected.  And if the nostril-burning fumes of wormwood, valerian and what Stiles could only ever refer to as Venom were a clue, he might as well stop struggling to pull himself out of his stupor because he wasn’t going to be able to move a muscle until they found him.  _They_ being, in a general sense, some sort of Fae, and in a specific sense, some sort of evil-bad no-good Fae.

In short, he was completely fucked.  

As was Bishop.

Bishop whom he could almost feel shaking him, whose voice he could almost hear.  It was a fucking pity, really.  Things had just been getting seriously decent between them.  He certainly didn’t deserve what was coming.  Well, if Stiles was going to be honest, no one, not even the people he hated deserved to get fucked sideways by evil-bad no-good Fae.  

Except, the _thing_ that had sunk its claws in him should have done something more to him by then.  Stiles shouldn’t have been able to formulate a single thought at the point he was at.  He could still feel the creature running him down, could still practically feel it breathing down his neck, but the hold it had over him seemed to be loosening instead.

Stiles had another second to wonder what the fuck Bishop was doing, if he was doing something, if he was somehow the one holding the Fae back, and how the hell it was he was capable of it, before he felt the dull throb and ache of blunt human teeth bite the back of his neck and shake.  It hurt like a bitch, and Stiles was pretty sure he wasn’t going to be able to turn his head for days, but it also shook the claws out of him.

If he had a record that could be noted on, Stiles would have liked it to be known that he had never ever been curious about what it felt like to be the bunny that two dogs were fighting over.  For the record.  But anything was better than evil-bad Fae, so he focused intently on moving towards the teeth and pushing the claws away.  It seemed to work.

It worked quite well.  Incredibly well, in fact, because he hadn’t tried to break the spell that was still spinning in his brain and had helped the Fae anchor himself to Stiles.  He’d simply redirected it.

And found himself promptly stuck in another little piece of suck.  This time, it was a human matter, but that didn’t seem to make things any better.  He’d managed to pull his consciousness into Bishop’s mind, into his world.  He’d managed to locate exactly what the threat was that had been chasing Bishop down.  In technicolor intensity.  Reliving shit Stiles was sure Bishop never wanted to remember, and most definitely would never want someone else to know so intimately.

The smell of cheap cigars and dirty sheets.  The feel of hands holding him down. Knowing how it felt to fuck someone he felt nothing for, knowing he had no choice about it, learning how to get it up and get it on for anyone that whisky sour breath and rough hand on the back of his neck pointed him towards.  The sickening feeling of chasing down a mark he actually liked, knowing he would break them, knowing all the terrible ways he would use them.  The burning despair in the pit of his gut that came with knowing that he would do it anyway, because it was what he had been told to do, what he had been molded to do, the only thing he knew how to do.  The only way he mattered.

Stiles puked again as soon as Bishop unclamped his jaw off Stiles’ neck.  Puked and cried a bit with a mournful wail that, thankfully, Bishop didn’t pick up on.  Stiles wouldn’t have been able to come up with anything other than a lie if Bishop had asked about it, and he really wasn’t in the mood to get stabbed on that particular morning.

Bishop looked to be processing something hard and fast, stuck in an ugly thought process he just had to ride out before he could make it stop and come back to who he had become, who he had carved out of thin air despite all the forces at play trying to hold him down.

He was a lot stronger than Stiles had given him credit for.

Stiles watched Bishop, watched his breathing even and the hellfire seep out of his eyes.  Waited until Bishop remembered where he was and looked over to check on Stiles.  Stiles had managed to clean himself up a little, courtesy of the wipes, and he’d cleared the area around the puke carnage, tossing dirt on it to hide the blood that had come up at the last.  The blood was probably just a side effect of the game of magical pong he’d just played and it wasn’t anything he wanted Bishop worried about.

They had bigger fish to fry.  And the urgent need for some hard running in the immediate future.  By the look on Bishop’s face, he wouldn’t mind a good escape.  He’d probably be running soon even if there was no need for it.

It was up to Stiles to stop playing the god’s fool and start, for fuck’s sake, _looking_ before he took a jump.  Even if it was possible that he hadn’t been overestimating himself, he’d definitely been underestimating the nature of the road he’d chosen to take that morning he loaded his shotgun with malice aforethought and clear intent.


	17. things happened

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Something serious, and from what he could tell, very bad was going down. It was no time for Bishop to lose his shit and go all darkside._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You've all been so patient, and that last chapter was a little short, so here's another one.  
> Let's hear it for rainy days and cancelled plans.

Sometime over the bottle of Thunderbird, Bishop had told Stiles that he grew up with a foster family.  That had been a bald-faced fucking lie.  Nan had passed when he was nine and sure,  he’d been placed when the State couldn’t find any other competent relative, but he only stayed with the foster family for a grand total of two days before they took him to Uncle Sam and Uncle Sam gave him the ‘Deal of Your Life’ speech over the biggest bowl of ice cream Bishop had ever seen. 

(Bishop had witnessed The Speech many times when he was older and running courier for the foster families that spotted and recruited potentials for the Family.  Uncle Sam made it different for every kid, giving them what they wanted, what they thought they needed, like he could read them with one look, and maybe he could, because they never refused.  Not one of them.)

Even when he thought about the Family, even when he remembered the Rules and other things Uncle Sam had said, he never let himself think about _those_ things.  The ones that happened in dark rooms.  The ones his brain called _wrong_ and _hurt_ but his body had learned to call _good_.  It was shit that he played along the edges of to ease a hunger that always lived inside of him, but shit that he could never give in to.  The thing he would never let himself be.  The place he would rather die than get buried in again.

So why he would remember it all so suddenly, so brightly, right on the heels of one of what Nan used to call his ‘spells,’ he couldn’t figure.  Not any more than why it seemed so absolutely necessary, with dream-like clarity, that he should bite Stiles on the back of the neck and shake him like a mama dog with a misbehaving pup.  Stiles was practically seizing, for  Christ’s sake.  What Bishop did made no sense whatsoever.

Except he had woken up to the sound of Stiles panicking and with the soap-clean smell of Nan in his nose, with the heat of her hand on his shoulder even while he’d been asking Stiles to answer him and the kid had just swayed like a rag doll.  Biting Stiles made sense in the same way the weirdest shit always seemed to make sense when he had been around Nan.  

She had taught Bishop not to hesitate when he felt that little push into something that seemed completely obvious and logical even though his brain was screaming _what the fuck?_   More often than not, things worked out for the better when he went with it.  Every once in a while people swore he’d saved their lives, but Bishop could never give himself that much credit.  _Things happened_ , that was really all there was to it, and the only claim Nan had ever made herself.  And in Bishop’s opinion, if anyone had been the miracle worker, it had been Nan.

After all, look what had happened to him after she died and took her miracles with her.

He shook himself out of it, he had to.  Something serious, and from what he could tell, very bad was going down.  It was no time for Bishop to lose his shit and go all darkside. 

Stiles was watching him with a hand on the back of his neck.  “Did you really _bite_ me?”

Bishop shrugged, as close to a confirmation as he could get, trying to pull words back into his mouth.  “Are you bleeding?”

It startled Stiles a little in a way that would normally have Bishop chasing the thread like a bloodhound on a scent, but Bishop was off his game, off balance with the need to hide his own shit, feeling way too weak and vulnerable to go on the offense.  Stiles pulled his hand down and stared at it for a second, shaking his head almost as an afterthought, hunting down his own words.

“No, no.  But listen, we really should get moving.  Something bad–” He looked up, their eyes locked and both of them jolted a little, still raw and jumpy.  Stiles swallowed but couldn’t look away any more than Bishop could.  “Something bad is coming.”  His voice was stronger.  It was as if the ground was becoming solid for both of them.  “Something seriously, seriously bad.  We need to get the fuck out of here as far and fast as we fucking can.  Are we, I mean, can you...?”

Bishop cracked half a grin, shaking his head and ambling to their gear.  “Now who sounds like a fifteen year old girl, eh, Stiles?  I mean, you’ve seen my dick–”  About as far as he could get before something not too hard and heavy smacked him in the head.  But it got them both back in the game, moving faster and smoother with every breath.

By the time they hit the pavement they were moving in tandem, more in sync than they had ever been, flowing smooth and clean.  Seemed that pressure suited them both well.  Bishop was gratified with the thought.  It had been a long time since he’d run with someone at his back, and even longer since he felt he could count on them as much as he could count on himself.

Stiles looked at the road in one direction and then the other, brow furrowed.  “What do you think?”

How was it possible that someone with whatever freaky skills it was he possessed, someone who could kill as quick and clean as ice could look so unsure and insecure?  How was this self-assured commando of a human being even capable of showing doubt?  But there he was, the kid hiding in the monster suit, as lost as anyone could be.

They complemented each other, then, Bishop capable of picking up where Stiles might falter.  It occurred to him that Grommet hadn’t been so far off the mark, calling Stiles a tourist.  Not that Stiles was faking it, just that he was pretty fresh to the road.  Bishop had a feeling that he could have easily spent a lifetime with Stiles and he might never have shown this much of himself to Bishop.  Something had changed.  Something had shifted between them, and if it meant that he wasn’t going to have to deal with the Stiles Bullshit Parade, then maybe he’d consider biting people more often.

“You said we need to go fast, right?”  He watched Stiles carefully.  His next reactions would tell a lot.

Stiles nodded a quick affirmative, still looking from side to side.

“Trains are good for hiding, but they don’t move too quickly.”  Bishop led, wondering if Stiles would follow along.

Stiles nodded a little sideways, biting his lip, nervous.  “Yeah, but if you can’t catch a ride, you’re a sitting duck for _anyone_ that might have an interest in finding you.”

Bishop nodded, “Not too mention how much cops like messing with loiterers.”

And there it was, the slight twitch, the tell Stiles had almost managed to hide.  So he _was_ a wanted man.  It wasn’t something Bishop felt entirely comfortable asking about, what with the murdering tendencies, but it made the next choice obvious.

Bishop shrugged, casual as anything.  “So, we take a ride of our own.”

Stiles grinned like a wicked kid.  New to the life of crime outside of cold blooded murder, then, even if the law was after him.  Interesting.  It had been a long time since he’d broken in a greenhorn.  He had the feeling, though, that Stiles was going to be a quick study.

Yeah.  Things might work out all right after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you guys are still here! You are so fucking awesome. : )


	18. a couple of crows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _People wanted to help. He got that. People loved to think that they could help by giving out wise advice. People loved the sound of their own voice, hell, Stiles was completely on that train. He definitely got that. What he could never get was why there was always one point or another that someone was going to start thinking he was a damsel in distress._
> 
>  
> 
> _And it pissed him off every single fucking time._

They stopped at the first low-rent mall they came across and ambled to the back parking lot, a dusty out of the way area marked ‘employee parking.’  The two of them hung out by the dumpster like a couple of crows.

Stiles didn’t ask any questions, just followed Bishop’s lead.  Bishop watched the parking lot until a middle-aged woman stepped out of a semi-compact tan generic car.  She was clearly harried, pulling her hair into a ponytail while trying not to drop an apron she had gripped in her armpit.  She didn’t even notice Bishop until he bumped straight into her and she stumbled.  Bishop steadied her as she almost fell, apologizing profusely.

She looked as if she had lost her train of thought completely while Bishop grinned at her and let go.  It wouldn’t have mattered what he had said.  She watched him, open mouthed and frozen in place as he slipped past her and walked on, glancing back a couple of times and winking when he caught her still looking.

The woman came back to her senses blushing furiously, hurrying into the employee entrance with her head ducked and a little grin on her lips.

Bishop signaled to Stiles with a tilt of his head and ducked into the car she’d come out of, keys in hand.  

“Too bad it had to be her.”  Stiles muttered as he ducked inside.

Bishop made a short nod.  “Yeah.  Kind of sucks.  I’ll try to leave it somewhere it’ll get found before it gets trashed.  I slipped her some money.”

Stiles glanced over at Bishop, eyebrows raised.  “Enough to cover the cost of the car?”

Bishop was shaking his head with a sideways grin.  “You might possibly be overestimating the value of this car.  Did you see the way she kicked the door shut?  Like it was something personal.”  His voice was fond.  He’d already become fond of the woman.  Who’s life he’d just fucked.  (Even if it was temporary. That hardly mattered.  He’d lost his car and gotten it back enough to know that it always sucked.)

Once he’d gotten situated on the highway, cruising along with the rest of the traffic, Bishop glanced over at Stiles with a hard stare.  His voice was hard, too.  Clipped and quiet.  “Don’t ever kid yourself into thinking that someone’s not getting hurt.  If you want to live the life, Stiles, somebody always gets hurt.  So either you lay down and die or you get over it and move on.”

He had a point.  On the other hand,

“Fuck you, Bishop.”

Fuck him.

“You’ve got some sort of a kid-kink going with me, and believe me, I have no complaints, but before you start taking it upon yourself to teach me the ways of the world, you might consider the circumstances under which we met.”  Because it was always such a good idea to remind your one and only friend that you are a practiced murderer.

People wanted to help.  He got that.  People loved to think that they could help by giving out wise advice.  People loved the sound of their own voice, hell, Stiles was completely on that train.  He definitely got that.  What he could never get was why there was always one point or another that someone was going to start thinking he was a damsel in distress.

And it pissed him off every single fucking time.

But if he’d learned one thing, what with the overbearing testosterone bullshit wolf-power side effect, he’d damned well learned how to nip that kind of behavior in the bud, if it took him nutting the jackass who was out to save him from himself or what-the-fuck-ever.  

Picture him crouched over a fresh corpse, blood on his hands, a swipe on his face.  (Stiles could remember that, could remember the feel of the cold night air gusting into the train car, the way the blood almost burned as it dried).  That was pretty much the most potent psychological kick to the nuts he could think of.

He was feeling the knife edge of things now.  How could he not?  They were being chased by an elf.  And if anyone ever knew anything about elves, it was that you could never outrun an elf.  In fact, if you did run, you could rest assured that you were running towards them.  No matter which way you turned.  What may or may not be left unsaid in Bishop Charming’s presence was that evil elves didn’t chase anyone down they didn’t intend to kill.  Massively. 

It was a bit of a moral dilemma.  On the one hand, Bishop demanded honesty and Stiles would like to have shown him enough respect to give it to him.  On the other hand, Bishop was already acting like the jackass who intended on throwing himself between Stiles and the bullet and that sure as hell was not going to happen.  Stiles deserved every single bullet he dodged, and if this was going to be the one that got him, so fucking well be it.

(He always kind of had the feeling that those were going to be the fuckers that would finish him off.  Some sort of fae, some sort of fairy-folk, pixy, elf, whatever.  They smelled like cold dead blood to him.  They smelled like his own death, like a few puncture wounds and lacerations that almost killed him did.  They smelled like drowning, like the feel of water pouring into his nose.  He tried not to think of it a lot, but ever since the whole non-con body-art event, he never felt like he could shake them.  Even if they weren’t going to kill him outright, they were somehow going to _get_ him killed because they valued human life about as much as a research biologist valued the life of a lab rat.)

Really, the truth of it was, the failed trajectory of the event having happened the moment the trigger had been pulled, Stiles would be better off just acting like an asshole and losing Bishop the moment best suited for the survival of all parties.  All things considered, it had to be pretty damned soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they're coming in short but sweet.  
> I'm getting chills...


	19. serious cold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bishop knew he’d earned the awkward silences that followed them clear through to Topeka.
> 
> -and-
> 
> It was possible that Bishop was becoming a bit paranoid, but really, what’s a little paranoia among murderous friends?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning in this chapter for: excessively short chapter.  
> but, well, you know... live with it.

Bishop knew he’d earned the awkward silences that followed them clear through  to Topeka.

He also developed some serious cold in his gut regarding the state of mind Stiles was in.  The things going through his mind that had him thinking about murder.  There was a point in time, all tender thoughts aside, that one needed to keep one’s eyes open, because if something was knocking Stiles off his A-game, it had to be something big.  And not anything supposedly just narrowly avoided.

"So, that trance thing you went into – does it happen all the time?"

Stiles shook his head with a sharp glance in Bishop’s direction.  “I shot out a locator spell to figure out who was after us.  They hacked it and traced it back to me.  These... people, they can do this thing where they grab you through your spell.  They paralyze you, it looks like... well, you saw.  They can keep you that way until they track you down in person.  It won’t be happening again because I won’t be tossing any more spells out or putting myself out there in any way they can sense.”

He probably didn’t even notice it, but Stiles was tightening in on himself.  Unconsciously defensive.  Probably, given the nature of the shit he just said, expecting to be ridiculed.  At the very least he wasn’t expecting to be taken seriously.  For good reason.  People didn’t talk about locator spells and long-distance mind freezing powers.  But then again, people also don’t chew on each other as a matter of medical treatment, either.  

So it was safe to say that Bishop was all in.  He might as well start taking all that crazy shit seriously, because the funny thing was that it was the only part of Stiles that wasn’t ninety-percent bullshit in the first place.  Hiding the truth in plain sight.  

The kicker of it was that he wasn’t entirely, not one-hundred percent certain that he knew which way Stiles would bolt.  Wasn’t one-hundred percent entirely certain that Stiles was intending on bolting at all.  

Bishop could just be drinking the kool-aid after all, and Stiles could be leading Bishop down the garden path to his very own sacrificial-or-otherwise death by butchery.  (Like a _good_ butcher would, killing smoothly in a single stroke, draining the blood.  Properly.  That was how it had been.)

“So I guess that means you can’t, you know, _do_ stuff to get away?”

Stiles gave one long nod.  “Yup.” 

He popped the ‘p’as he pulled the word out into a fucking paragraph of significance.

“You have any interest in telling me what the hell it is we’re up against?”

Stiles shook his head almost as slowly as he had nodded.  “No.  No, because there is no ‘us’ in this equation, there is nothing ‘we’ as in ‘you and me’ are up against.”

“Because you really figure it’s that easy?  I’m hanging out with you, how do you know these people aren’t already after me?”

Stiles’ jaw had tightened, the words cutting through the air.  “Because that’s not how it works.”

Bishop snorted, cutting across three lanes of traffic to get off the interstate at the first halfway-decent sized suburb they could find.  He glanced over at Stiles’ reaction to the change of course.  Stiles had noticed, but more like a puppy sitting up straight than like someone who’s nefarious plans had been thwarted.  

“You seem to be forgetting that you have no special powers and I’m bigger than you.  I’m not losing sight of you until this is all sorted.”  For his own safety as much as Stiles’.

It was possible that Bishop was becoming a bit paranoid, but really, what’s a little paranoia among murderous friends?

Bishop pulled over on a street half-full of cars, low-story apartment buildings honeycombed between trailer parks.  Nobody noticed them park, nor would they have given a fuck about it if they had.  

_(Sam taught Bishop how to pick the neighborhoods where you could park overnight without getting hassled.  They slept in the first car he stole before they dropped it off in the back lot of a church.)_

“So,” Bishop breathed.  “You want to get behind the wheel?”

Stiles shook his head. “No.”

“We’re just running blind, aren’t we?”

Stiles leaned back in his seat with a smile on his face.  “You pick the best hiding spots, Bishop.  I’m going to get some sleep.  You should do the same.”

Most likely just to be a complete prick, Stiles pushed his seat back slow, stretching when he reached optimal reclining position, not bothering to hide a cocky grin under the arm he’d pulled up over his eyes.

Although his mouth did water, Bishop didn’t let himself get distracted.  “And later?”

Stiles didn’t skip a beat.  “Later we get lost in the little city that is Topeka.  Become hay in a haystack, as it were.”

The word ‘lost’ was the only one that resonated, the only one that stuck in Bishop’s brain even while he slept.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise, the next one's on the grill, cookin' up raw, coming very very soon.


	20. what color is in your hand?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Frozen still but tripping over the same calm words over and over, a litany of “Bishop stop. Bishop listen. Bishop please.”_
> 
>  
> 
> _Bishop didn’t want to do any of those things._

Lost.  It kept on resonating, taking on an intensity of its own when they arrived in Topeka, laying the day to rest in some crowded shit-hole bar.  Bishop was playing more drunk than he was, spilling more than he drank, using one of a thousand different tricks to make the drinks disappear.  But he didn’t feel bad about it because Stiles had been working hard trying to get Bishop drunk.  

It was hardly subtle.  What was even less subtle was Stiles slipping something into his drink.  Nothing he could smell, but a small sip poured a silky warmth all the way down to his spine.  He rode out the buzz and lost the rest of his drink.  

If Stiles was half the con he thought he was, he would have been paying much more attention.  He would have caught that spill.  No way he would have missed it, Bishop almost poured half of it on Stile’s shoes.  Bishop was getting sloppy, lightly drunk and lightly drugged, but the kid just kept looking around, incredibly distracted.  Jumpy.  Bishop leaned hard against Stiles, pretending he was all warm and glowy and couldn’t hold himself up.

Stiles looked Bishop over with a little surprise. “Whoa, there handsome.  Looks like you’re done for the night.”

Bishop couldn’t tell if any of that was genuine, but was far past thinking Stiles was anything other than a serial killer who was planning on doing some face-painting with Bishop’s blood.  He leaned hard on Stiles as he was ushered out of the bar with a few too many ass grabs.  If he reacted, he’d get caught.  But it was pretty disturbing, how many snickers and appreciative nods Stiles got.  How pretty much absolutely no one questioned Stiles about the incapacitated body he was dragging off.  Sobering.  Well, a little sobering, and any little bit helped.

He’d been tossing Stiles off balance the whole way out the door, leaning and listing.  Stiles didn’t think twice about the hard stumble and full body grope Bishop landed on him once they got outside.  He just patted Bishop on the shoulder and pulled him straight, murmuring softly about getting Bishop ‘somewhere quiet’ and how Lydia always makes the margarita mix way too fucking strong.

Stiles was blinking in surprise, pushed back against a wall in the darkest corner they’d walked past with one of his own blades held flush against his throat.  Frozen still but tripping over the same calm words over and over, a litany of “Bishop stop.  Bishop listen.  Bishop please.”

Bishop didn’t want to do any of those things.  

But the way Stiles was holding himself as stiff as a board and pressed back as far from the blade as possible made Bishop freeze. He was almost remembering something.

Stiles kept up a breathless whisper.  “I get it, okay, you’re pissed, but before you do anything else, Bishop, what color is in your hand, Bishop?  Just please, stop and think for just a second.  I’m not moving a muscle, here.”

That started to sink in with a thick breath.  The color of knife.  Stiles’ knives.  He had quite a few.  There had been a show-and-tell moment in a train car to Denver.  Bishop was sure he’d seen almost all of them (except for the blade he’d used on Grommet, he knew he hadn’t seen it and he hoped he never did).  But the color.  

The color mattered because of the green knives.  The knives stained or painted green were the ones that had been poisoned.  Any one of those was capable of killing a human being with the smallest scratch, or at least that was what he’d claimed.  

The knife in Bishop’s hands, resting just against Stiles’ throat, breath-sharp and cold, it was green. 

So.

Bishop backed the blade away, just a bit, pushed in harder with his other fist.  “That it?”  He snarled, “This how you plan on killing me?  Quick and dirty in some ‘quiet corner’?  Should I thank you for not gutting me in the process?”

Stiles loosened the moment the knife wasn’t on his throat, but his eyes burned fever-bright.  “Honestly?  Give me credit for having at least a little more class than that.  You were just supposed to get high, okay?  You were supposed to feel really fucking good, and then you were supposed to have the weekend of your fucking life with that Oakie boy in the corner you were pretending not to notice.”

Even with a knife at his throat, Stiles was capable of making Bishop blush.  Of grinning sideways and raising his eyebrows.  “ _What?_ He was checking you out just as hard.  It would have been a brilliant union.  Not to mention, you would have been a little fucked-out and less enthusiastic about whatever plots for revenge you came up with when you sobered.”

“Revenge for what?”

“For the whole ‘Ditching you in a nightclub with an Oakie boy’ plan.  For drugging you.  For running.”

Bishop shook his head.  “So you didn’t get me wasted and tried to drug me in order to kill me, you did it to dump me off on some stranger?  This is you, _breaking up with me?_ ”

Stiles shrugged a little, still wary of the knife hovering far too closely.  “I mean, when you put it that way...  Yeah, I guess.”  Their eyes locked and there was that _shift_ again, one mask to the next, “Look, seriously, you need to get the fuck out of here.  You need to go back in there and get yourself some corn-fed country to treat you right, Bishop, or just turn around and _run_ , for fuck’s sake.  Because it’s not after you yet, but if you don’t get the fuck away from me, it will be.”

“ _It_?  Not ‘him’ or ‘her’ or even ‘them’?”

Stiles responded with a tiny nod.  “Yeah.  At least for now.  Sometimes it does become ‘him’ or ‘her.’  I mean, if you last long enough for them to introduce themselves, which happens like, never, so yeah... mostly I call them it.”

Stiles spasmed briefly and straightened.  He shook his head and slipped past, pulling Bishop’s arm straight as he went, sending the knife tip skittering against the wall, nearly singing out a breath, “Shit. Too late.”  

Stiles crowded Bishop from behind, a hot whisper against the back of Bishop’s ear.  “No matter what you see or hear, just stay right where you are.  Think defenseless little bunny thoughts and don’t fucking move, at all, until this creature is either gone or dead.”

There was some sort of pressure, a warm blanket of a thought coming over Bishop as Stiles stepped away.  Bishop felt himself relaxing and immediately shook the feeling out, just like Nan had taught him how, like a dog in a stream.

But Stiles was still right there, his arm slipping around Bishop’s front, chin resting on his shoulder.  Bishop felt the puff of a laugh on the back of his ear, the body pushed against him warm and sinuous, Stiles' voice just shy of a thought.

“Why does this not surprise me?  Sorry about this, babe–”   Stile’s arm slipped up and wrapped high and tight around Bishop’s neck, knocking him out cold in seconds, just long enough for Bishop to wrap his hands around Stiles’ arm but do no good at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh, hey... look out for that cliff, there...  
> yeah, uh... sorry?  
> (not sorry)


	21. sad little beacons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _...there was a flavor to the the way he was tracking Stiles, something Stiles thought maybe he knew, but that was the thing about the Fae, you could never really know them._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for: violence and torture

Stiles let go of Bishop and ran, not bothering to look behind him.  Thanks to the burning pressure flaring up in little clusters throughout his body, he knew exactly what direction the Fae was moving in.  The bastard had the force of a gravitational field, half-sparking a wide array of Stile’s tattoos to life.  And there was a flavor to the way it was tracking Stiles, something Stiles thought maybe he knew, but that was the thing about the Fae, you could never _really_ know them.

Hoping maybe he’d left Bishop far enough away from them, Stiles skidded to a stop, spinning in a slow lazy arc.  Talking, because what was the point in pretending that the bastard was more than ear-shot away?  He was too close for any sensing spells to be working for Stiles aside for a vague charge throughout his body. 

“This about that whole thing in October?  That ‘hunt’ thing?”

“That hunt _thing_?”

Elves were arrogant fuckers, no matter what team they batted for.  Dark elves simply saw absolutely no value inherent in a human life.  They weren’t dark, not biologically.  Their skin was spell-dyed to the color of obsidian.  Painful process, permanent and it sometimes didn’t take right.  Sometimes they were striped and whorled like stone.  

The mark did make them an instant target in the wrong places, but they were many, they had been around for countless ages and in the end they were a community.  A community that, to be honest, saw no inherent value in a life of any sort, human or otherwise.  They killed as a matter of course and had, over generations, become chameleons, experts in keeping to the shadows underground and unnoticed in any environment.

Dark elves could be pretty touchy, too.  

Things were starting to make sense to Stiles, enough to know that he was well and truly done, and that this fucker was of a mind to make Stiles squirm before he killed him slow.  Nothing to do with that but fuck with it.

“Yeah.  That _thing_ where I trapped some arrogant fucker that guy Fiern or Fern or whatever-his-name-was had it out for.  Trapped him.  With a fucking erector set, some bailing wire and a D battery.  That wouldn’t happen to be you, would it?  Because I think it is.  You were supposed to be in some dungeon for the rest of your life.  What’d you do to piss old Fern off, anyway?”

“I killed his wife and daughter.”  The voice came at Stile’s side with a hard shove that Stiles rolled off, still moving, constantly moving.  The elf was tossing confusion spells around himself, enough that Stiles only had the vaguest of ideas of where he was for a few seconds before he couldn’t think straight.  Slick.

Stiles didn’t have the heart to tell him how unnecessary this all was.  The only knife capable of killing this bastard was in Bishop’s grip, and even if Bishop was conscious he would never have been able to see the guy clearly enough to stab him.  He’d have to stand still and in the light for that to happen, and there’s no way in hell a Drow would ever do those things at once.

Stiles quirked a grin.  “And I _trapped_ you.  Like a beaver.  Or an otter.  Or, hell, even a bunny–”

He let his body do the thinking, ignored the failed brainpan and threw his elbow out.  He made hard contact, maybe even got the guy’s face.  Just because he was going to die didn’t meant he had to make it easy on the bastard.  And besides, the more trouble you are, the quicker they kill you.  Stiles wasn’t stopping to think about it, but he was aiming for as quick a death as he could get.

But Stiles had forgotten about the Fae.  He tried to forget it regularly – the way they drew him in, the way they made him feel like rubbing up against them like a cat.  Apparently it wasn’t unusual, but it was a pain in the ass to try and keep your wits about you when all the blood was draining into your dick.  Some sort of magic-related thing.  Some unintended side effect of grafting all that magic straight on to his skin.  They said he smelled pretty good, too, but they always managed to keep it classy.

It had to be magic-related, this ‘elves are liquid sex’ thing, because the minute the bastard showed up, way in his personal space and grinning like an eel, Stiles had to let out a little hungry sigh.

For the wife-and-child murdering bastard he ran down with a fifth-grader’s science project less than a year ago. 

He managed to slide away from the guy’s wicked sharp knife, but it cut his shirt open and Stiles wondered if maybe that had been all the Drow had been trying to do.

Suspicions were confirmed when the guy had him up close, pushed him up on to his toes against a brick wall and ground a thumb into the middle of one of those medallions that had been carved into his skin.  It ached in a way that drew a long sob out of Stiles.  Some sort of deep and digging pain.

The Drow tilted his head when he pulled his thumb away and Stiles gasped another breath.

“Do you know what these mean?”  Pressing Stiles against the wall with the rock-solid hand he had wrapped around Stiles’ neck, he dug his thumb into the other design.  Stiles didn’t know what to say.  He hadn’t expected it would hurt like that.  He wanted to beg the fucker to stop and he couldn’t stop the tears.

The Drow pushed Stiles’ forehead until his head rested on the wall and leaned in over his face.  

“Nothing.” A smile that wasn’t charming.  “Those pictures, if they were proper, would be real pictures of something even your tiny brain could comprehend.  That thing ‘took’ about as well as bad mark.  Must have hurt going in.”  They had always seemed like abstract stained glass, chips of color among lead tracery, almost a spiderweb but not. They felt like a toothache when the Drow ran his thumb back over them.  “They say it never really stops hurting, when a mark sets wrong.  That’s true, isn’t it?”

If he wasn't spelled against low-line non-threatening pain they might have hurt, but Stiles had no idea.  They had been numb, which could an indication of the spell doing it's thing, but he figured they were numb because he'd been _enameled._    He didn't have any idea if the process had hurt.  He didn't remember much of anything about it, just came to, scared as fuck, holding his phone and watching the backs of some Fae disappear.  

The bastard finally stopped touching him and Stiles let out a small sigh of relief.  He knew he didn’t have to answer.  He could think of nothing to say anyway.  That hand on his throat was not moving, holding him still as a stone with that mythical elven strenghth, making breathing hard but not impossible.

“If they _had_ set right, those things would have given you all sorts of boosts, you know?  These?  These are just sad little beacons, calling me home.”

Stiles hadn’t noticed movement, hadn’t heard the sound of steel, just felt something sharp and metal bury itself into him, right through one of the marks.  Stiles had that much time to realize it, to actually start to _feel_ it before the Drow did the same on the other side.  

The Drow was holding him up by those blades, only they were more like spikes, or like two swords slotted into each other and Stiles didn’t know if he was feeling anything, if he could feel, if that burning howling ripping thing was a part of him, if he was the one who was trying to scream but managing only a high-pitched sigh and if, most likely, he was dying of shock.

It hurt.  He thought it hurt.  He thought it must have hurt, it did hurt, but really, he didn’t know.  He didn’t know much of anything.  He was kind of floaty, wishing he could see his dad again.  Wishing he could share just one more laugh with Scott, one more quiet beer with Derek when no one else was around.  

Wishing he could have one more kill.

Like maybe getting rid of this motherfucker pinning him to the wall with his body pressed tight against him and holding those spikes in, pushing up against the insides of his shoulder blades.  Stiles could feel the pressure there, feel them digging into the bone, their weight against the wall, and it made him want to sob like a three-year-old.  The only thing that stopped him was the grin the Drow had, drinking him in.  Watching him die like someone watched a lover orgasm.

Then again, he was Drow, so that was to be expected.

There had been times, just a few times, when Stiles regretted being so well protected.  Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, he found himself wishing all his sigils and charms would just give up and let him de already.

 

 

 


	22. blessedly under

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The Drow's voice was a little like a song and mostly like a hiss. “And what have we here?”_
> 
>  
> 
> _Stiles sneered at Bishop, but the effect was ruined by the blood staining his lips and dripping off his chin. “Should have stuck that knife in me while you had the chance.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this one's pretty bloody and pretty painful.

Bishop shuffled forward as quietly as he could.  Froze at the image of Stiles impaled on the brick wall by some crazy-ass spikes, driven hilt-deep so Stiles was pressed back on the brick wall behind him.  Two through those marks he’d dreamed about _(he’d dreamt about this moment, too.  No use in trying to hide that from himself anymore.)_ One through his gut.  Stiles was sagging.  Like a marionette, his chest heaving as his weight pulled on his collarbones, digging him deeper into the sharp spikes.

His muscles were all tight, like rope.  And he shouldn’t have been conscious, or maybe he should – it was when they took the things out that you died, right?  But he was.  Looking around.  Skipping a beat too many when their eyes locked, enough to catch the attention of the shadow that had been hovering over Stiles as though it was choking him.  The shadow that took form the way a moth shifts on a piece of bark and gives itself away.

Bishop wouldn’t have called him a person, not really.  There was just something _off_ , a little different about the way the creature moved and looked.  Something in the joints and the length of the limbs that seemed not entirely human.  Also, the way he looked like he had been dipped in black ink.  It must have been a spell that had kept him hidden, because Bishop couldn’t stop staring at him now that he could be seen.

The Drow's voice was a little like a song and mostly like a hiss.  “And what have we here?”

Stiles sneered at Bishop, but the effect was ruined by the blood staining his lips and dripping off his chin.  “Should have stuck that knife in me while you had the chance.”

“Oh, now, don’t try playing that game with me.  His scent is all over you, boy, he is definitely _not_ your enemy.”  

The creature had been staring at Bishop the whole time.  His eyes were gold, too light to be brown, and once Bishop got caught in them he couldn’t look away, even through the malice he could feel like the sharp pain from a sudden gust of cold, couldn’t look away as his heart slowed and vision faded.

He knew _that_ was a spell.  No use fighting it this far along, so he let it take him down, determined to come up swinging.  

_(Uncle Sam would sneak up on him and choke him out sometimes.  Not for the act of knocking him out, but to make sure he’d come out of it swinging.  He stopped doing it when Bishop came to already holding Uncle Sam up to a wall with his arm pressed hard against Sam’s throat.  When Bishop stepped away, expecting retribution, Uncle Sam just patted him on the shoulder and looked at Bishop with pride in his eyes._

_It was right around that time that Bishop started dreaming about drowning and thinking about leaving.)_

 

_***_

 

Stiles watched Bishop fold through eyes that burned.  He couldn’t make tears anymore, he wasn’t sure why, but he figured it had something to do with feeling like he was on fire.  Which was nothing compared to the feeling of those spikes, slowly ripping him open as he lost the strength to stand on his own, or the way whatever the spikes were made of kept making the magic buried under his skin _twist_ in the most horrible way.

The worst part by far was the way he was awake through it all.  Aware, and far more clear-minded than he had any right to be, than he would ever want to be, and he knew he had only the Drow to thank for that.  He wished Bishop had stayed under, had run away when he came to, but knew that really he was the only one to blame for this entire clusterfuck.  It was textbook.  This is What Happens to You When You Trust Fae. 

Sure, they had an impregnable cell.  The kind the Drow could never even dream of breaking out of.  Sure, that meant the Drow didn’t have to be killed.  And no, no worries, the Drow would _never_ come slumming in this plane to find him either, even if he did get out of that impregnable cell, which he would never be getting out of anyway.

Sure.

Maybe he should amend his thinking, and consider that all elves, not just the dark ones, had very little regard for the value of a life.  At least for Stiles’ life, Marking him in a way that could potentially light him up like a beacon for the Drow.

Oh.

Wait.

He was going to take the blood-loss as a valid excuse not to have figured that one out, but really, the minute that fucker had said something about those marks ‘calling’ him, Stiles should have done the math.  Stiles the human bait.  Again.  

Unfortunately, with the Fae behind this plan, Stiles knew they had no intention of rescuing him.  They were just trying to slow the Drow down long enough that he lay down some tracks, some particular kind of magical residue that certain Fae could chase down, paralyzing the Drow for extended periods of time from any distance away.  If they were lucky or good or a little of both, they would paralyze their target long enough to catch them.  If not, they’d keep doing it until they ran the Drow to the ground.

They’d be closing the trap around the Drow over Stile’s corpse.  They’d probably throw a  party for him after they killed the Drow.

It would have been so much easier if they had just let him kill the bastard in the first place.  He had told them as much at the time.

They hadn’t appreciated it.

Apparently things were complicated between that Fae Lord Stiles had worked for and this Drow.  Complicated.  Hell, maybe this was foreplay.   He swore to any deity that was listeining, if he was going to die as some bit-role in a Romeo and Juliette –

The snap of a finger brought him back to the sting and burn and ache, firecrackers flaring under his skin every time a spell hit a fail point and burned out and got lit up again by _something_ the Drow was pumping into him.  He felt like a horse being run to death.  He wondered if you could feel it when your heart exploded, before he finally focused in on the Drow as he prodded Bishop.

He picked up one of Bishop’s arms and looked to Stiles.  “Tell me, what would your uncle think if I sent him one of these?”

Stiles puffed out a wheeze and managed to grind out words.  “He’d hunt you down and tell you to mind your own fucking business.”  This was, in fact, the absolute truth.  After all, they were dealing with wolves.  They were all about keeping it in–house.

The Drow smiled a little and lay Bishop’s arm down, lifting his unconscious face to the light.  “Just as well.  I’d rather keep this one for myself.”

That broke him.  Finally dragged up the last reserves he had and vaporized them.  There was nothing he could do.  He was going to die and he had just spoon-fed Bishop right into the darkest heart of that world he’d tried so hard to keep away.  

(There was something someone told him once.  

He couldn’t really remember where, but they had said, _‘You’re good only for death, boy.  There’s miles of blood ahead of you.’)_

Nothing he could do and Stiles just sobbed, let out a ragged howl of a sob.  

It made the Drow jump, just a little.  He glanced up at Stiles for a second and bloomed a stripe of blood across his chest and throat.  The cut Bishop laid into the Drow was deep enough, _well placed_ enough that it might have stood a chance of killing the Drow on its own even without the poison.  With the poison he was dead in seconds, his eyes rolling back into his head as he slumped to the floor, stiff from the paralytic that caused his death, bleeding out over himself in sheets of red.

And Bishop, hauling around over the Drow and stabbing him.  More than once.  Took a while to get him to stop.  When he did, he puked in the bushes.  

Stiles could feel his spells begin to work the way they should, could feel the spiderweb of a stasis net forming around him, starting to drag him into a self-induced coma.  He could hear Bishop calling out to him, but it didn’t really seem to matter.  The pain was whiting out and he was going blessedly under.


	23. obliterate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Piece of easy._
> 
>  
> 
> _Swan dive into blood and butchery and all the darkest places in is mind._

Piece of easy.

Swan dive into blood and butchery and all the darkest places in is mind. 

Bishop came up swinging, knowing where the guy was before he opened his eyes, his body knowing even earlier than that.  

There wasn’t any thinking to do.  There was just the need to obliterate the fucker so badly that there was nothing left of him. 

Took him a while to start thinking straight.  Cost him a lot.  Stiles was pretty much out cold by the time Bishop got to him, but maybe that was a good thing because there wasn’t a damned thing Bishop could do for him.  

Bishop did wipe the blood and sweat off Stiles’ face, and it might have been his imagination, but he thought that Stiles leaned in a bit.  His breathing was steady.  His heartbeat was strong but very, very slow.  Like he was hibernating.  Bishop wondered if in the end it would help at all given that he was still stuck to the wall.  

He didn’t make it a habit, but he kinda wished someone was around to tell him what to do.  Maybe just this once.

 

He stood around long enough for it to get quiet, time for the dust to settle and the leather clothes the corpse was sinking into to stop creaking.  Maybe it was something about the poison or something about the creature, but his blood stopped flowing quickly.  The wounds just dried out, grayish-pink.  It took almost no time for the creature to turn ashy gray.

Or maybe it had taken a long time, he couldn’t really tell, he wasn’t exactly tracking straight, just wiping Stiles’ blood, staunching the worst of the flow, propping Stiles up.  But there was nothing he could do about the spikes.  It was like they’d been cemented into the wall.  Sharp and brutal x’s, like the tip of a phillips head, only big and sharp and long.  He’d gotten pretty familiar with the things before all hell broke loose again.

 

Noise came round a corner.  Shapes sprang out of the darts of streetlight that reached the alley, and Bishop was ready before he even knew he was ready, holding the knife as if he knew how to do this shit.  Only, he kind of felt like he could.  The creatures stopped, not exactly intimidated, mostly just surprised.  

One of the guys in front whispered “ _They’re alive!”_ in shock and after a heartbeat all hell broke loose, not against Bishop but all around him, like an ER had just surrounded him.  They talked to him calmly, approached if he allowed it but never tried to take his knife.  Eventually they did retrieve the holster for it, and someone told him point blank to _put that thing away before he hurt himself with it._

They wouldn’t let him look at Stiles while they pulled him down.  The sounds and the screams were more than enough for Bishop.

Apparently, they were going to be just fine.

Bishop wanted to know exactly what _just fine_ meant, but they wouldn’t really get into that. They moved.  Carried Stiles and led Bishop into sleek and quiet cars, sped through the roads and down into the underground parking to a skyscraper, or what passed for one in Topeka.  Then they went up and up until they were at the top, up as high as they could be, looking out the windows as Stiles was hooked up to something medical-looking.

Stiles had already become somewhat lucid.  Now they were ‘infusing his blood’ with something, and what that meant, Bishop didn’t really want to know.  Stiles said ‘might as well trust them’ when he first woke up and Bishop pounced with the question.  Bishop was inclined to agree.  At any rate, Stiles was looking better by the minute.

They were joined by a guy who had been around a lot, who’d taken care of Bishop.  He was the first guy Bishop had ever seen make the ‘warrior look' casual.  He was pale.  Pale skin, pale clothes, pale green dreadlocks on his head, shape and form similar to the other not-human he’d killed, longer, stretched out funny.  Freaky eyes.  Stiles turned white and started cussing the minute he set eyes on the guy. 

Apparently the guy was Fiern, the Lord, and Fiern had set Stiles up, used him like bait and had every understanding that it would most likely kill Stiles.  They needed fresh tracks on a corpse. Stiles was a convenient corpse.  They had not expected to be so lucky as to have a different corpse altogether handed to them so early in the hunt.  

Stiles glared, “Yeah.  You hadn’t expected to have your fun spoiled.”

Fiern dipped his head.  “We all love a good chase, but in all honesty it had to be you.  You were the only thing he would have stood still for.  _You laughed in his face_ , Stiles.  It really pissed him off.”

Stiles let out a breath of a high laugh.  “So now you’re blaming me for getting pinned to the wall like a bug?”

“No.  I am thanking you for your service and your sacrifice.  This was a dangerous monster that needed to be stopped.  You have helped to make us safe and will be thought of with respect.”

“Wait – was that the eulogy?  Just change a couple words here and there?”

Fiern nodded, smiling like he didn’t give one damned fuck how much Stiles bitched.  “I put it together myself.  Couldn’t let it go to waste, now could I?”

He didn’t skip a beat when he continued, “And your friend comes with us.”

Stiles stiffened, his eyes venomous.  “No.  That’s not going to happen.”

Fiern just smiled wider.  “After all this time.  You still assume you have a choice in the matter.”

“What about me?”  Stiles jumped like he’d forgotten Bishop was right there.  “Do I have a choice?”

“You come with us.  You stay with us for a year.  After that, we drop you off wherever you want to go.”

“Don’t trust them, I swear to god, Bishop look at me, I mean seriously, I’ve been pinned to a fucking wall.  That’s what I get for messing with these bastards.”

Fiern straightened up to his full height, eyes getting cold.  “Trust?  you want to talk about _trust_ , Stiles?  How’s this for trust: Bishop, we are taking you. We’ll give you all the answers Stiles didn’t _trust_ you with.  We will be teaching you how to survive in this world.  Now that you’ve killed that Drow, every jackass who thinks he’s a badass will want a shot at you for bragging rights.  I Intend to make sure that won’t happen, basically because I owe you one.  What you choose to do with it after that year is your choice.”  He dropped his voice and glared back at Stiles.  “Be honest at least with yourself, as someone who’s _seen_ as much as those lines on your arms say you do.  You’re good only for death, boy.  There’s miles of blood ahead of you before your spiral ends.”

He left and left behind a heavy silence.  

“Is he right?  About the people coming after me?”  Bishop’s question, small and aimed in no particular direction.

Stiles’ answer was about the same.  “Yeah, I don’t doubt it.  Bragging rights are big around here.”  He tried to keep talking, “I’m sorry–” 

But Bishop had had about enough of that bullshit.  “No.  We’re not going there.  I had trouble running me down before I met you.  And these untrustworthy men, or things, or whatever– these people, they’re the first willing to teach me how to survive all of this shit.  Were you?  Did you even consider it?”

Stiles didn’t move.  Didn’t even blink as Bishop stepped away.  Took one last look.  “Anyway, thanks for the warning.  Keep the coat.  It looks good on you.”

Stiles didn’t look small.  He looked dazed from the firefight, but ready to stand up again at a moment's notice.  Bishop’s coat, a thigh-length leather coat with a hoodie sown into the collar, had somehow ended up on Stiles at some point.  It looked like armor.  He hoped maybe it would help, but had his doubts.

Serious fucking doubts.

He would never regret having met Stiles.  But it was also true, through all the blood, fire, pain, glory and grace that became of his life, Bishop never regretted leaving on that day either.

 

He said a prayer as he was leaving, asked Nan to stay behind so that at least Stiles wouldn’t have to die alone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (just noticed that the chapter starts with a swan dive.)   
> adieu, Bishop! adieu!
> 
> okay kids, playtime is over.


	24. enough to kill the pain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He was miles away while he watched Bishop go, and with every passing heartbeat he was more and more certain Bishop had just dodged a bullet, regardless of the alternative._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (warning for angst and brevity.)

_Miles of blood._ Stiles was glad there weren’t any werewolves around.  They’d be on him like white on rice given the way his heart just stuttered.  He was trying to keep tracking what was happening, but with the blood machine he was hooked up to and the near-panic attack he was having at hearing those words, it was getting hard.

Fiern the Fucker was probably right.  Okay, no, he was completely right, and because Stiles was a selfish fuck with little self-control, he’d managed to deliver Bishop straight into the heart of a world that could and most likely would eat him alive.  The same way it had taken Stiles, a little piece at a time until he was good for little more than getting nailed to the wall.  Good for little more than death.

But that, in and of itself, wasn’t enough to justify the panic.  There was something else, something that came with those words.  Earlier he thought he had remembered them, but maybe he hadn’t, maybe he’d dreamt them or saw them in one of a hundred visions, who knew.  One thing he did know – hearing them come out of that elf’s mouth filled him with a sense of dread so strong he thought he might suffocate from it.

He was miles away while he watched Bishop go, and with every passing heartbeat he was more and more certain Bishop had just dodged a bullet, regardless of the alternative.

 

The elves left the way they always did, all sudden and magicky, leaving Stiles alone and wrung out in a gutted office looking over the Topeka landscape.  

The silence had him in a choke-hold in less than a minute, the shakes setting in so bad that all he could do was slide down on to his knees and press his forehead against the cool glass window pane, watching his tears blur and distort the city lights.

Here was the truth of things.  He was supposed to be alone.  And alone wasn’t some lone-wolf happy little dream, alone was empty, alone was loss.  

_(Lone wolves didn’t leave packs, they hung around the edges of them, like carrion birds, hoping for what little bit of offal or protection the proximity of the pack could give them, sliding around the perimeter like unwelcome ghosts or shadows.)_

He should have died.  By all rights he should have been dead for a while.  He’d been bartering with fate, endangering someone else’s life so that he could survive, because he knew, just like those wolves knew, alone meant dead.  He knew that in his bones just as much as he had known that he would be tacking a death sentence of one sort or another on the head of anyone he attached himself to.

And there, right at the center of his heart, in the one little place that didn’t feel ice cold and crackling electrically with elf-juice, at his small and delicate core was a lost voice that wondered what the fuck had happened to the kid he thought he was.  He wanted to go home.  He wanted to be able to hide under the covers and believe that a thin layer of fabric was enough to protect him from everything the world wanted to throw at him.

He wanted to be weak.

He wanted that big empty that he carried tucked in his heart of hearts to swallow him whole.

He wanted to beg for mercy.

Instead he reached for the claw around his neck, unsheathed and ran it down one arm, cutting through every white scar.  He uncapped the hilt, surprised as he always was at the moth-ball sting of the crytalline powder he kept inside.  He’d never used this particular powder, but he’d been very careful in making it.  Like Lydia had said, not the sort of thing you’d ever _want_ to use, but something you definitely wanted to work right if you had to use it.

He poured the powder over his weeping cut and rubbed it in hard, searing tears of pain joining the rest clouding his vision.  After a few breaths, though, his whole body felt warm.  He felt as heavy as lead and as light as a molecule all at the same time.  He could feel the air his lungs were pulling down, soft and clean, and he could feel his muscles loosening as calm and peace overwhelmed his pain.  Safe in the knowledge that all the residual magic the elves had left in their wake would scare any threat away, Stiles let himself nod off, cradled in a warmth like candlelight and a cool like a summer stream.

It wasn’t quite enough to kill him, they’d been especially meticulous about that.

It got him close enough, though.  It was enough to knock him out, enough to burn out all the super-doping shit those fuckers had pumped into him.

Enough to kill the pain.


	25. easy as murder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _...if things were going to keep going the way they had been, he was going to need something that would hide the bloodstains._

He had dreams of dancing in the blood of strangers and woke in a dried puddle of his own blood.  Stiles was still far from lucid, but he could see dawn starting to creep in the edges of the horizon and he knew he had to get moving.

He managed a hobo shuffle to the stairs and took them all the way down, not about to climb into a little steel box of an elevator that may or may not have had a reliable source of power attached to it.  When he reached the street he picked a direction that looked promising, shoved his hands in his pockets and started walking.  He felt a slip of paper brush his hand and knew before he even pulled it out that it wasn’t a piece of trash.  Bishop had had a penchant for littering.  He liked to argue that the land had already been littered by concrete and asphalt and he was just adding to it, and he never missed a chance to do so.

The piece of paper had been a gum wrapper.  It listed an address in Albuquerque along with the name “Tammy” in a hasty scrawl.  Well, it looked like he had a direction to move in, at any rate.  Of course, first he’d have to find their gear.  

It took him the whole day.

Granted, he wasn’t moving with any serious determination.  In fact, there were quite a few detours after he found a wad of cash in an inner pocket of Bishop’s magical coat.  There was lunch, and pie with coffee, and a long stop at a thrift store where he replaced all his clothes (except for the coat) with clothes that were not bloody and smelled nothing like him.  All in black, because if things were going to keep going the way they had been, he was going to need something that would hide the bloodstains.

He didn’t feel like he was sobering up, either.  Everything felt a little muddled and half-asleep, like nothing really mattered all that much.  It got so he started wondering if maybe he’d broken something permanently.  It wasn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility that he wasn’t ever going to come down.   He wasn’t sure he was ready to face life if that was the case, so instead of heading straight out he thought he’d give it a night, hoping maybe he’d come down eventually.  

Sleep wasn’t much of an option, either, so after he found his pack and stashed Bishop’s somewhat more permanently (with wards and sigils and signs that only Bishop would see and recognize if he lived long enough to learn a damn thing from the elves), he went back to the bar it had all started in.

At first he wasn’t going to drink at all, just find a spot to spend the night in relative warmth and anonymity, but then someone bought him a drink.  After that he was only going to drink a little but the drinks kept coming, and when the girl who was buying them finally showed her gorgeous face, well, he found it hard to stop.

The alcohol didn’t seem to be counteracting the high he was riding, but it did make things much softer around the edges.  He realized that the girl was deliberately trying to get him drunk at about the same time he couldn’t give a single fuck about it.  Found it funny, actually, with the whole turnabout thing.  He pictured Bishop in the corner, smirking.  

He was also way too curious about a beautiful girl trying some sort of a grift on him, so there was no way he was going to back out at that point.  Besides, anything she had planned for him would likely suck less than being nailed to a wall, and hey, he could say that from personal experience. 

He thought he might have said that aloud, but he wasn’t at all sure and she sure as hell wasn’t listening to him, just running her hand up and down his back and over his arm as if he were some sad little boy who would cave in at the slightest physical contact.  He let it play like that, let her run with all her preconceptions, first and foremost that he was a mark.  Even nearly blind drunk he wasn’t a mark, he knew that from experience (pixies had a spiteful sense of timing), and even though he was pretty fucked up by the time they were sauntering out the door, he wasn’t blind drunk.  Slightly uncoordinated with the mouth and unable to fight his natural ability to trip over his own feet, but he wasn’t _blind_ drunk.

With his hand on her arm steadying him, he could feel her pulse rise.  Might not have done much to sober him up, but it did help wake him up.  He could feel the adrenaline starting to rise in his own body, and it did something funny.  It didn’t give him clarity, exactly, it just made things really really simple.

Like when she walked him to the darkest part of the parking lot and someone came up behind him with a bat, he didn’t have to turn and look, he didn’t even have to react before he’d buried a small knife in his throat.  And when the lovely girl started to scream, it was no trouble at all to make her stop by drowning her in her own blood with a quick puncture to her lung.  

Or maybe both lungs, he couldn’t say, he wasn’t thinking clearly at that point, wasn’t exactly thinking much at all, just crouched, watching them die and _liking_ it.  It was surprising, how long he was able to stay, how still they got before anyone came in their direction.  They’d picked a good spot for a heinous crime.  Too bad they didn’t pick the right victim.

A drunken howl a block away brought him back to himself, and he realized he’d been tracing pictures in the blood that had reached his feet.  They were doodles, not anything that meant much, but it shook him a little that he didn’t even realize he’d been doing it.  He liked it, though.  He thought the pictures looked pretty with the way the sodium-orange street light made the whole thing shine black and gritty in the asphalt.

He realized it was probably about time to get the fuck out of Topeka, too.  

It was a slide, it was a gliding trance that had him dancing out of town, easy as pie, easy as you liked.

Easy as murder.

But he wasn’t going to think about that.  He was going to pin that one on the fucking Fae and the way they fucked up his life every time they were within a square mile of him, and he was going to bury that night as deep as he could, just like he was going to bury the previous night.

Maybe the previous few years.

He wasn’t going to think about that at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if anyone noticed, but a few chapters back the Drow named Peter as Stiles' uncle. I didn't notice until recently. Think I'll leave it that way. It's the kind of thing that will drive the literalists crazy and pass right by the rest of us....


	26. in the cold light of day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It was always so much easier when he had someone other than himself to worry about_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> would you like a little angst to go with your angst, dear?

In the cold light of day, Stiles had to say he was an idiot.

But he wasn’t a murderer.  He wanted that noted for the record.  Right there after the whole chew-toy-and-two-dogs issue.  Or maybe even before that, maybe at the top of the page, in bold print.  Stiles Stilinski was Not A Murderer.

Sure, okay, he’d killed, but mostly only monsters.  And now three human beings, but they were pretty much monsters as well, and anyway, he had been acting in self-defense.  At worst, that was manslaughter, right?  So maybe he was a manslaughterer, but he was nothing worse.

Not. A. Killer.

Just the kind of unbelievable _idiot_ that would get fucked up beyond the hope of any clear thought and walk himself right the fuck into a trap.  _Knowingly_ walk himself into a trap.  Unfuckingbelievable understatement to say he hadn’t exactly thought that one through, and this time, unlike most of his worst ideas, there was no one with whom to share the blame.

He wound up killing two people basically because he had been drunk, curious, and here was the kicker – he had known they weren’t capable of hurting him.  And he hadn’t walked away.

He wasn’t going to lie to himself and say he had no idea why he’d done it.  It had something to do with the way he’d felt when the spikes shattered his shoulder blades and sank into the brick at his back, how utterly tiny and helpless he had felt, how certain he had been that he was watching himself die in slow motion.  Alone, with no cavalry in sight, insignificant and completely human, the fact that he could tame lighting with his fingertips rendered meaningless. 

It had something to do with the way his near-death had gone down, with the way he was hardly even able to put up a fight.  With the way his hands now shook and heart rabbitted in panic at the idea of working magic. Just the thought of feeling power running through his body got him in a cold sweat, shaking like an old man, and all he could do was breathe until the ache under his collarbones died down.  

 

It wasn’t the first time he’d been without magic.  It wasn’t even his first bout of PTSD.

_These are the kinds of things that can only kill you if you let them._

He could hear that in a quiet voice he hadn’t known Derek was capable of, remembered the sound of his footsteps walking away and remembered knowing that from that point on no one was going to help him through his panic attacks, no one was going to remind him how to breathe, no one was going to calm him down.  He was going to have to deal with it for himself, and it could kill him if he let it.  

Stiles resented it at first, the way that Derek had come between him and his friends.  It took him a while to realize that he did it because everyone was treating him like something weak and Derek was the only one capable of seeing him for what he really was: a potent weapon with none of all those weaknesses that kept the Alpha werewolf up at night. _(Someone capable, for instance, of crossing over a line of ash, of breaking through the sort barrier that could otherwise, say, cause a whole family to burn up trapped inside a home.)_

He hadn’t resented Derek for a long time.  He did, however, resent the hell out of anything that tried to render him helpless.  Not that it would help him any – practicing magic was using your force of will to manipulate energy, and you had to have precise and driven focus to do it. 

Resentment was one of those things that would blow your focus all to hell, leave your will shooting out in a hundred different directions while your brain started up with a litany of ‘ _and another thing...’_ and by the end of it, all you wanted to do was break something, anything at all, and you couldn’t because you’d spewed yourself out all over the place so badly that you couldn’t even stand.

So.  No magic for a while.  Not until his hunger, drive, and need for it obliterated the baggage he was carrying.  He’d been through that enough that he knew how to compensate for it, developing an arsenal and a personal defense system that carried an abundance of redundancies.  As long as he wasn’t getting screwed to the wall by some mega-powerful supernatural creature out for blood, he knew he’d be able to take care of himself.  

But just to be sure, he decided to run an inventory in the lonely boxcar he was riding through the flat and endless plains of Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle.  By the time he dropped into New Mexico and the west started looking like The West, Stiles was properly kitted up and capable of making it through any stop-and-frisk that didn’t involve metal detectors or being stripped naked by werewolves.

Not that he was looking for a war, no sir.  Just that it never hurt to be ready for one.  

 

He dropped off the train at a junction outside Tucumari, feeling like his gear matched the setting perfectly, the vagaries of economy and tourism having left a solid portion of the desert town looking like a bombed out and forgotten third-world outpost.  He fit right in the town, lost among the rest of the poor and disenfranchised, feeling like a lonely ghost.  

On the plus side, he did find the biggest bag of pork rinds he’d ever seen at the grocery store, along with prayer candles for every god disguised as a saint that existed.  He grabbed the one of Saint Christopher, wanting it with a need like a kid spotting the perfect teddy-bear in a toy store.  He tried to tell himself that the candle in the tall jar was a useful thing, but in his heart of hearts he knew it had nothing to do with usefulness and a hell of a lot to do with the road and the lost cause that his life had become.

He squatted in an abandoned drive-through with a bleached out and crumbling plaster facade, its themed meaning lost a good long time ago, and spent the rest of the night huddled in a corner of the dusty place, looking at Bishop’s little note in the weak light of his saint’s candle, tracing the careful handwriting, wondering if following this lead was in any way a good idea and trying to figure out what he had to lose if it turned out to be a terrible one.

He’d gotten no closer to an answer by the time he drifted off curled around his pack with a knife gripped tight in his fist.  The debate had been moot anyway.  Like Lydia liked to say, if anyone really wanted to trap Stiles all they would have to do was leave an unanswered question at his doorstep.

He slept through the night, which was a definite plus, and nearly took his eye out with the knife as soon as he woke up.  Clearly, he was going to have to re-think using sharp pointy objects as a security blanket.  The crisp early morning desert cold that had soaked into his bones evaporated in time with the rising sun, and the promise of baking heat had Stiles deciding to get to Albuquerque in style, buying a bus ticket instead of hunting down a freight car.  

Thankfully, the woman at the ticket counter didn’t even bother to ask him for ID, just gave him the side-eye until he payed in cash. She also made it a point to inform him that he would get kicked off the bus if he tried to smoke in the bathroom and that he wasn’t allowed to urinate in the bushes around the bus station.  Stiles didn’t bother to ask exactly what she thought he was, just smiled and winked before he walked away.  She tried to act disgusted but couldn’t quite hide her grin.  So, he still had it.  That was good to know.

  

In retrospect, maybe putting himself in a situation without egress where he was surrounded on all sides by people hadn’t been the best idea.  Stiles had not expected to be feeling quite as jumpy as he did, but he couldn’t stop thinking about the stale air he was breathing and all the people who were looking at him and could identify him if anyone managed to put some sort of two and two together and he wound up on one of those Most Wanted crime shows. 

He white-knuckled it all the way to Albuquerque, hiding in his hood and pretending to sleep while he chanted the periodic table in his mind.  He didn’t bolt when they reached the station, either.  He waited his turn and let the nice little old lady go first, he did everything he could to blend in, knowing that the crosshairs he was feeling were purely a product of his fucked up psyche, but feeling them anyway until he wandered in a maze-like pattern long enough to know for certain that no one had followed him.

He found an empty dark corner to crouch in for a while, willed down the shakes and stilled his breathing until he was absolutely certain that he’d managed to swallow down the tears that had been threatening to burst free.  He wasn’t, goddammit, he Was Not going to cry over some chickeshit reaction that his chickenshit brain had decided to slam him with.  

It was always the little things that got him.  Drove him fucking nuts how he could face down a shotgun without a single twinge only to find himself completely wrecked in a corner of the locker room over the idea that someone might be able to recognize the powder burns he’d ended up with.  

It was always so much easier when he had someone other than himself to worry about. 

By then he didn’t even have to look at the piece of paper to know where he was headed.  He chanted the address to himself until he was standing in front of the dingy little strip club it belonged to, not entirely certain if he had a plan and completely certain that he didn’t really need one anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bonus points for me for being able to properly spell Albuquerque.


	27. skating bullets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _But whatever, he’d take trouble just as eagerly as he’d take a good time, and was actually kind of gratified that this was turning into something other than a fact-finding mission. Stiles never trusted fact-finding missions. They hardly ever yielded anything even close to a fact and quite often involved squatting in a muddy ditch._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> death. and blood. but mostly death.

Funny how whatever time of day it might have been immediately turned into half-past midnight inside a strip club.  Nice too, that the daytime clientele wasn’t screened anywhere near as diligently as it might have been if the bouncer wasn’t busy trying to sleep off the bender he must have had the night before.

Stiles came in quiet and virtually unnoticed, sitting at a table in a dark corner to get his bearings.  It wasn’t long before a woman in a k-mart bikini carrying a drink tray stood in front of him, ostensibly blocking his view of the show, making it clear with her cocked hip and gum-cracking that she wasn’t moving until he ordered a drink.

Stiles gave her his best crooked smile.  “Uh, hey...  Um, I guess I’ll have a shot of your best whatever.”

The waitress smiled back in an _I absolutely don’t mean it_ way.  “Whatever, huh?  Yeah, we got that, but I’m gonna have to see some cash first.”

What, did they have a vagrancy problem at Tits-R-Us or something?  But Stiles just kept smiling as he placed a twenty on the table.  “Tammy still work here?”

She slipped the bill away like a pickpocket hides a stash and rolled her eyes, but the cash did seem to wake her up a little.  “Yeah, talk costs extra.”

Stiles raised an eyebrow but put down a fifty.  That time she leaned in towards him, gracing him with the best view she could provide and a smile which looked no more genuine but a lot more predatory.  “You sure you don’t want my company instead?”

Stiles refused to look down, just held her eyes and shook his head.  She straightened up immediately and became much more real, something just shy of teenager and about as tired as a fifty year-old.  “Yeah, she’s in the back.  She’s not due on for another hour or so, but if you want a private, I can get you a chair.”

Stiles gave her his best warm-your-toes smile to make up for the brush-off.  “Nothing private, just want to talk, is all.”

The woman snorted as she tucked her tray under an arm.  “Yeah, sure, that’s what they all say.  Give me your name and I’ll tell her you’re here.”

Shit.  Well, that was something he hadn’t thought about.  If Tammy was from Bishop’s past, she would know him by a different name.  “Just tell her it’s the guy from Bishop.”  Odds were that since he carried the name,  Bishop had most likely told his story more than once.

“Bishop.  Got it.”  She left with a cursory swipe of the table, heading to get his drink and ostensibly pass the message on.

He waited at least five minutes before she reappeared, dropping a tall flowery pink drink in front of him and stopping long enough to mutter.  “Yeah, she said wait, she’ll get to you in a minute.”

She took off without making eye contact, slightly breathless like she had a hundred other thirsty customers.  Given that all five of the after-lunch crowd were busy throwing singles on the stage, it was a glaring red flag if he’d ever seen one.  The drink probably had about two molecules of liquor in it and tasted mostly like watered down syrup.  He wondered if maybe he should take that personally.

Ten or maybe twenty minutes after that, a tall sparkled woman in a powder pink wig came to his table.  “You the Bishop guy?”

Not Tammy, then, if Bishop knew Tammy at all, which was likely, given the waitress’ response.  If she _had_ been Tammy, the powder-pink girl would have stopped dead in her tracks as soon as she laid eyes on him and saw he was the wrong guy.  So Stiles kept his gaze hooded and nodded slow, hoping this wasn’t some poaching-stripper scenario.  There were lots of things he knew how to deal with.  Strippers trying to steal a prospective client from other strippers wasn’t one of them.

But the woman just tilted her head and said “Tammy said to bring you out back.”

Probably the only place in the world that sentence wouldn’t have a guy running for the hills would be in a strip club, and really, if the guy knew what was good for him, he should be running even then.  Of course, it was widely understood that Stiles hadn’t a single fucking clue what was good for him, ever.  In any sense.  He had that on good authority, which was namely Allison, Lydia, Isaac _and_ Scott (not that he counted, ‘cause he had no place to talk).

But whatever, he’d take trouble just as eagerly as he’d take a good time, and was actually kind of gratified that this was turning into something other than a fact-finding mission.  Stiles never trusted fact-finding missions.  They hardly ever yielded anything even close to a fact and quite often involved squatting in a muddy ditch.  

Thankfully whatever trouble was on its way involved no mud and nothing supernatural, so his pants stayed dry and his tattoos stayed calm.  It was harder keeping himself calm, but he supposed eager-with-a-weapon looked a lot like eager-with-a-boner when you were wearing baggy clothes, so he was just going to go with his natural state, pulling his hood down extra-low for the added element of surprise.

“Out back” looked just like the back lot of any bar he’d ever seen; dumpsters, darkness, and the smell of rotting garbage the perfect backdrop for either illicit blowjobs or death, or maybe both, if you were feeling extra plucky.  He wasn’t exactly feeling any of that, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to disappoint whoever went through all the cloak-and-dagger to get him there by punking out at that point.

Princess powderpuff slammed the door shut behind Stiles, locking him out and leaving him alone to his fate.  Right on cue, a voice came out of the gloom.

“I always knew you were a sucker for the girl, Noah, but I have to say I’m a little disappointed that you made it this easy for me.”

He thought he had been ready to play it cool, except he recognized the voice and it filled him with a white-hot rage that was nearly blinding.  It wasn’t just the voice, either.  He knew that tone, he knew the shit that so often came after, and even if he’d never actually experienced any of it, Bishop’s memories were rushing back to him as though he had.

Stiles turned toward the voice, dropping down his hood.  “Disappointed?  Really?  Because if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you sounded a whole lot more gloaty than disappointed.”  It was the best he could come up with when all he really wanted to say was _Come here so I can gut you._

Unfortunately Uncle Sam only took a couple steps closer, nowhere near gutting distance, but Stiles wasn’t exactly surprised about that.  After all, he’d trained Bishop and Bishop killed a Drow while he wasn’t yet fully conscious, so the man had to have some wicked fighting wits.

Then again, so did Stiles.  And even if he didn’t have superpowers, he’d been trained by some who had, and one in particular who could care less for his excuses.  And although Derek didn’t teach Stiles how to fight while unconscious, he did teach him everything there was to know about being hunted, including how not to get ambushed.  

Which meant that even though he didn’t have super hearing, he had learned how to _listen_ , and regardless of the conversation, Stiles could hear soft movement somewhere behind him.  He could even hear breathing, which would mean the guy was most likely built like he needed extra oxygen just to move.  Uncle Sam was coming at him slow but extra-spiky, probably trying to herd Stiles into the waiting arms behind him. 

“And who the fuck might you be?”  The gravelly voice had been trained into Bishop, and for a second Stiles almost jumped.

He covered for it by sinking his hands in his pockets and shrugging with a cocky smile.  “Outside of _nobody you know_ , does it really matter?”

Uncle Sam nodded, weaving around him just a little, getting Stiles to move.  He could feel his heart start to race, and damn but it felt good.  It felt alive.

“Yeah, I think it does matter, son.  You’re wearing his coat.”

Stiles couldn’t keep his grin from widening, letting the dance start in earnest, moving but sliding in the wrong direction.  “So, maybe I was just cold.  Found this address in the pocket.  Hoped I’d get lucky.”

Sam smiled back and Stiles slipped loose the knives at his wrists, still keeping them tucked in his sleeves.

“No,” Sam answered, something bitter and pissed off and just a little too raw slipping into his voice.  “He’d never give up the coat.  So that means one of two things.  Either you took it from him, which I highly doubt, or he gave it to you.”

Stiles kept side-stepping in minute increments, gave him a small shrug in response.

Sam nodded “And if he gave it to you, that means he sent you, which means you know where he is.”  His friend from behind closed in quick and gripped Stiles by the forearms.  Uncle Sam’s smile grew wide and ugly.  “And you are going to take us to him.”

The grip was strong but not exactly tight.  Guy must have had fat fingers or something.  At any rate, he made it easy for Stiles to leave him nothing but the coat and an uneven gash running up the side of his face.  The guy was down and gripping his face in seconds. Thankfully the cut didn’t have to be deep for it to work.

Stiles didn’t tend to use highly toxic poisons on the blades he hid strategically on his person, just on the odd chance that he might nick himself accidentally, but the knives he’d chosen for this job still left a stinging burn that would eventually cause an allergic reaction.  That close to his face, without an epipen, (which he also happened to have and wasn’t about to share) the guy was probably a few minutes away from having his airway constrict completely.  Stiles felt no guilt.  He remembered that bastard from Bishop’s memories as well, and was getting a better death than he deserved.

He almost thought he was having fun when a metallic click stopped him short.  Motherfucker.  Uncle Sam had a gun.  

Stiles had forgotten about guns, about the propensity for bad guys to be carrying them when bullet proof creatures were non-existent, about how he was totally _not_ bullet proof, and how he couldn’t run faster than a guy could pull a trigger.  He knew a lot about guns thanks to his dad.  The thing he knew the most about was how good they were at killing.

Stiles froze in his tracks and looked back at Uncle Sam, who was frowning at his gasping lackey but didn’t seem overly concerned.

He looked back at Stiles, “You’re gonna pay for that.  But first, like I was saying, you’re going to get me Noah.”

Stiles kept light on his toes, but didn’t move.  “I doubt it.  In fact, I’m pretty sure you’re never going to set eyes on him again.”

Sam smiled and it made Stiles’ stomach turn.  “Is that right?”  He pulled something from the shadows, and it turned out to be a cowering girl.  “He sent you for her, didn’t he?  How fast do you think he’d come running to get _you_ back, do you think?”

The girl – no, to be fair, she was a woman, she was just so small and fragile looking that he couldn’t help but think of her as a girl.  She must have been Tammy, and she was terrified.  Stiles wanted to reach out to her, to do something, but he knew it wouldn’t help either of them.  

He looked back up at Sam.  “We aren’t in touch.  I have no idea where he is, and he has no clue I’m even here.  Even if I could get word to him, which I can’t, I wouldn’t do anything to help you.”

Sam showed all his teeth.  “Guess I’ll just have to get word to him myself, then.”  He looked over at Tammy, “Girl, you look cold.  Why don’t you grab that coat and put it on.”

She did exactly as she was told with automatic movements that had Stiles thinking she had already checked out.  The jacket was huge on her and made her look even more like a little girl.  Sam motioned her back to his side, turning her so she was facing Stiles, putting his hand on her shoulder.

“See, Tammy here, she doesn’t really talk much at all.  Noah, though – it was like he knew just what she was thinking.”  He was pushing her down on to her knees and Stiles could see renewed alarm on her face, a tremble of her bottom lip, but she didn’t look up.  Just like Sam said, she didn’t make a sound.  “And I think he’s going to hear her loud and clear this time, too.”

Sam placed the gun on her temple and she closed her eyes tight right before he pulled the trigger.  It was safe to say she’d seen it coming.  Stiles hadn’t, not really.  He couldn’t stop gasping, couldn’t stop staring at the mess that had been made of the girl’s face, couldn’t quite process what he’d just seen, couldn’t stop shaking his head.

Sam locked eyes with Stiles again and asked softly, “Think he’ll get that message?”

Stiles could only clench his jaw against the re-awakening rage.

Sam grinned again, gestured as if to placate him.  “Look at it this way, at least you’re not the one in the coat.  And I bet there’s lots of ways you can make yourself useful.  Maybe I’ll even keep you alive after I get Noah back, if you’re good enough.”

Stiles stumbled for a second, couldn’t get the world to stop reeling.  Bishop had been through those kinds of talks, and the false memories were overloaded with a so much desperation, want, hope and shame that he couldn’t stop the low growled _“No”_ that came out of him.

Sam grinned again and lifted his gun.  “You don’t have much choice–”

Heat.  There was heat and this sparking energy building pressure in Stiles’ chest cavity.  He wasn’t sure what was going on and he didn’t much care.  He’d rather take a bullet than this fucker, although he would regret not being able to kill him, but it wasn’t like he was a fucking Jedi with the mind powers.  There was little he could do to someone who kept a safe distance away and would drop him before he got close enough.  “I said _no_.”

He spat the word out with so much force that it felt like something else.  The pressure in him felt like it concentrated into a searing beam that shot straight out of his heart.  Sam grunted in surprise, stumbling back and wiping at blood that was starting to drip out of his nose.

That was something new.

Stiles’ magic, _all his magic_ , seemed to come to life at once, and even if he had no idea what he’d just done, he knew he could do it again.  He didn’t even have to say a word to make it happen.  All he had to do was look at the bastard and _hate_.

Sam dropped to his knees like he’d been kicked in the gut.  He started gasping, trying to breathe past the blood pouring out of his mouth.  The whole thing felt delicious to Stiles.  It felt as smooth as glass, as sharp as a razorblade as he kept on pouring pain into the man.

Sam died slow.  Slower than his buddy.  Slower than those others Stiles had killed.  And while he watched the bastard die, Stiles had a burst of clarity, a solid moment where memories and visions all came together and crystalized.  _Miles of blood._   Wrong or right, this was exactly what he was made for.  He could do it for the right reasons if he wanted, and he thought he probably did, but in the end it didn’t really matter just so long as someone ended up dead.

Maybe someday it would be him, and that was okay too.

Today, though, he was skating bullets with fire in his blood.

Today he was more alive than he’d ever been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would also like to take a small moment to hop up on my language soap box and point out that when someone growls low, they growl low. Not lowly. Lowly describes something of low social status. That is all it describes.  
> Thank you for allowing me to uselessly distract you from hating me for destroying Stiles' psyche.
> 
> (and "skating bullets" is from Siouxie and the Banshees song Dazzle  
> her line is even better- "...skating bullets on angel dust, in a dead sea of fluid mercury..."  
> good times.)


	28. a stone into water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Things became very clear and very simple after that. All sorts of things that used to matter faded into a background of white noise and he flowed with a flawless drive that he couldn’t understand but could feel down to his bones._
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> _It started in Las Cruces..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you know those times I do that premature epublication thing? This might be one of those. But it needs out, so, you know, grab some tissues and bear with me.
> 
> Alos, warning for violence of an ugly triggery sort that our hero plays no part in.

 

In the cold light of day this time, the only thing he regretted was not having dropped the bastards as soon as he had walked out the door.  At least that way the girl might have stood a chance of surviving.  If he could help it, he wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

 

He prayed.  He prayed to Kali that he would never forget the value of destruction.  He prayed to Tisiphone in her blood-drenched dress, that his destruction have direction.  He prayed to Adrestia Nemesis the inescapable, hand of righteous vengeance, justice and retribution, that she use him as his vessel and cut him down as well if he so deserved it.  He made tribute and swore fealty to Skuld, that she might remember his inevitable end when it came due.

But he danced with his own god.  He called her Steppin’ Razor, because Gibson deserved a god or twenty in his book.  He poured his blood for her over the ashes of his past, of who he once was.  He gave her everything he had within him with gladness in his heart and gave himself over to her song.  He heard her in the beat of his heart, in the rhythm of his breath.  He called her to him with the sound of his steps.

Plants started calling to him.  Some he knew, many he couldn’t identify at all.  He rolled their leaves into balls and tucked them in his gums, spitting like a baseball pitcher until his mouth went numb, or his face, or his whole head, and he saw and heard things he wasn’t sure he was supposed to.  He had no idea how much time he lost to the woods he walked through, and when he came out the other end his gums were stained the color of a dark bruise and the person he had been at the beginning was something he could not even recognize.

Things became very clear and very simple after that.  All sorts of things that used to matter faded into a background of white noise and he flowed with a flawless drive that he couldn’t understand but could feel down to his bones.

The towns he travelled through became place-names attributed to acts.  Other places he passed through, from big cities to ghost towns meant almost nothing to him, the faces he shared bits of the road with blurring into one dusty sun-leathered asphalt-hardened grin.

 

It started in Las Cruces.  In a darkened playground behind a school a man was strangling a woman.  She looked drug-thin and was falling out of what little clothes she wore, his come dripping out of her mouth as she struggled.  He hadn’t even bothered zipping up his pants and his eyes were full of so much rage that he looked like he was sleep-walking.  It was nothing, a tiny moment, a passing breath as Stiles slashed his throat open and faded back into shadows.

Stiles cast a little spell to make himself unseen, let the shadows cradle him as the woman, bathed in blood, screamed until the police came.  He watched the officers and the detectives with a mix of fascination and melancholy, wishing them all health and wellness, hoping they hugged their boys when they got home, remembering his father doing the same on late nights and early mornings, smelling strange, like gun oil and fear and strength.

The woman had not seen him at all.  He was a ghost, but the evidence of his passing was as real as the bruises on her neck.  No one thought she’d done it.  They could see his feet outlined in the blood on the ground.  Not enough to know a thing about him, but enough to know that he had been real.

He didn’t leave until the coroner took away the body and the sun began to rise.

 

Then there was Lubbock.  Lubbock was complicated.  His target was hard to spot, although every time he started to doubt himself he would cross paths with this stupid hick who annoyed the fuck out of him just by the slimy way he smiled.  Stiles wasn’t so far gone, however, that a slimy smile would be reason enough to kill someone.  The guy wasn’t particularly impressive in any way, looking both old and young, like hard living had both aged and preserved him at once.  There was dirt caked in the cracks of his hands that could have been car grease, or dirt, or machining oil, or who the fuck knows what.

Stiles had been just about ready to give up the ghost, making plans to leave while sitting on a stool at the local dive bar when the guy sauntered in and sat himself down right next to him.  Apparently the guy had gotten used to seeing him, and after a few beers the half-dozen nods they had shared in the past were enough for Stiles to be considered a friend.  Enough that the man started talking about his hobbies, many of which involved traps and woodland critters.  

But the pastime he was most proud of was a bit more special.  Took him a while to get to talking about it, but when he finally did, he couldn’t stop, with a wicked grin in his eyes.  It involved a metal baseball bat and whatever run-down old bum he came across passed out in the bushes and gutters while ‘hunting’ in skid row.  He called it ‘taking out the trash’, and was pretty fucking proud of the service he provided, capable of remembering his attacks like he’d been earning trophies.  Stiles was nearly crackling with electricity by the time he excused himself to go to the bathroom.

He didn’t stick around to watch the guy suck down the last of his beer and fall down dead from what was ruled as the overdose of an unidentified drug, symptoms matching that sort of  event and the man having a known history of drug abuse.  He regretted just a little not being able to tell Lydia that the poison was, in fact, unidentifiable.

 

After that he filled days with movement, the miles and directions he travelled unclear until he landed in Holyoke.  This time it came on lightning quick, in broad daylight in a gas station bathroom.  This time, Stiles was the one to feel hands around his throat, but it only lasted long enough to get the blood singing in his ears.  All he had to do was put his hands on the guy’s chest.  When the body was discovered it looked like a massive heart attack, Stiles having walked away long past, spotted only briefly by a video camera that no one even bothered to check.

 

Then it was like he was shot out of a cannon, slipping past Durango and dropping into four corners like a stone.  He was picked up by a man in a beat-up pickup outside of Mexican Water who said he was tribal law.  Stiles didn’t know whether to believe him or not, but he didn’t question the man, didn’t hesitate when the man took one look at his tattoos and said there was someone looking for him and they needed to go right then.  He just got in the truck and went.  After all, the guy had the good graces not to point a gun at him or put him in cuffs.

They followed a dusty red trail along the shadow of a canyon wall and he was dropped off at the door of a dilapidated hogan.  The man in the pickup didn’t stop long enough to kill the engine, rambling off on the rocky terrain as soon as Stiles got out of the truck.  Stiles found an old man out behind the hogan, spread out on a cheap poolside lounger, watching a hawk trace the moving winds.

He sat down on an old beach chair next to the old man and waited.  Since he’d arrived in that strange and desolate place, he didn’t feel the need to hurry anything.   

When the old man talked, it was almost the same sound as the breeze gusting through the canyons.  “There’s a woman, out past Kayente.  Cousin’s cousin.  Changed her name to Dancing Feather a ways back.  Anyways, she claims I sent a Chindi to her family.  Says her daughters are dying of ghost sickness.”

Stiles knew some first peoples showed respect by not looking in their elder’s eyes, but he honestly had no clue if that was a part of the old man’s culture.  But he was well aware of what a Chindi was.  Ghosts, especially evil ghosts, falling well within his scope of research.

He figured he wasn’t going to hurt anyone’s feelings if he just kept looking at the sky like the old man was doing.  “Did you send it?”

The man shook his head once, slowly.  “No.  She’s killing those girls herself.  Poisoning them by her own hand, and getting all the attention she can out of it.”

Okay, but.  There were a lot of buts.  “Okay, but what does any of this have to do with me?  And anyway, how am I supposed to know you aren’t the one who’s doing wrong?  Why should I trust you?”

The man let out a sigh of a laugh.  “Because I’m the one who sent for you.  And before you ask me why don’t I take care of it, I can’t because I’m out of time.  Even if I wasn’t dying, I’m not sure I could face her down.  There’s talk she’s even a skin walker.  Don’t know if it’s true, just know she’s full of power and a dark heart, and those girls need to live.”  

Then the old man looked straight at him, pinned him with his eyes.  “And even if it is a curse, it can’t hurt you.  I don’t claim to know anything about you either, but what I asked for was a warrior who could not be brought down by the darkness this woman possesses, and what I got was you.  You’re walking some sort of path, boy, I can see it clear as day.  You’re here because it’s where you’re supposed to be and you’ll kill that woman because it’s what you’re supposed to do.  So you can sit here and pretend to be some lost child, or you can get to listening to your gods and get on your way so I can die in peace.”

A whole minute, or hell, maybe even an hour passed as they looked at each other before the old man finished talking.  “You know I’m not lying.  You can see my truth.  I said I’d take care of those girls.  There was something wrong with their grandmother and there’s something wrong with their mother, too, something we couldn’t heal, not in nine days or nine hundred.  But those girls – they need to live.  There’s nothing wrong with them.  The people need those two to grow up strong.  You’re going to make sure that happens.”

So he did what the old man said and he prayed.  Within a breath or two he dropped into a trance like a stone into water, and the words that came out of his mouth were not his own.  “I’m thirsty, old man.”

The old man nodded and pulled out a flask from under his lounger.  “I have what you asked for, but I wont give it to you.  If you’re making the boy drink poison, it should be him that decides it.”

The trance evaporated almost instantly, and Stiles felt himself fully seated in his body once again, revving at full throttle, a spark in him igniting a wicked smile.  “So.  Poison?”


	29. walking lightning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He crouched low over the girls, the way a beast might who was as used to fighting on four feet as well as two. He bared his fangs and raised his hackles and laid claim to his ground the way he’d seen done above his broken body one too many times. He was ready when it came._

Stiles couldn’t tell if the old man’s chuckle was fond or mocking, and he didn’t entirely care.  The man had stopped laughing long before Stiles had emptied the flask, having been rendered speechless by the way he’d managed to down the whole thing in one go.  But Stiles had long ago outgrown the use for a gag reflex, let alone a spleen.

There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that whatever concoction was in the bottle could have killed a mere human at more than a single swig, but he could feel his goddess pushing up his elbow, daring him not to stop, and even the short history he had with her had shown that she always had the best ideas.

The old man’s eyes had turned grim by the time Stiles was done, and he refused to take his eyes off the ground as he handed Stiles a beaded bracelet.  Stiles understood the reaction when he looked down and saw his skin flashing, strings of light following the tracery of his veins like lightning.  It was likely the reaction of his newest tattoos doing their job, a side effect of the neutralized venom in his system, but any explanation for it did little to dull its effect.  He was walking lighting.  And he had a job to do.

He didn’t press the old man for details.  The bracelet was enough.  It had been well worn and was full of the woman’s energy, and for once in his life he thought he might have been able to understand his dog-friends with their fixation for tracking scents.  He was chasing her down and getting closer by the second, on foot over rocky land, covering miles with a speed he had no right to.

Or, for all he knew it was all some crazy hallucination.  All living things he passed were pulsing and throbbing with patterns.  He could hear the ground reverberate with his steps as though it was a hollow drum.  Crystal structures within stones were singing harmonies with the slow movement of the earth, and after night fell he could feel starshine bouncing off his skin like sleet.  There was no moon that night.

He heard coyotes yip and howl each other on as he neared his target and could feel sticky spiderweb strands of darkness try to wrap around him and slow him down, could feel them snap and fizzle when they touched his skin.  When he stood in front of her double-wide it looked as though it was lit up by a helicopter’s spotlight in his mind’s eye.  He didn’t hesitate walking in the unlocked door.

He was met on the other side of it by a man who fought like he was drunk or possessed and was probably both, moving through blows that should have knocked him out, taking a beating and barreling forward like a tank.  

Stiles had his own advantage.  He could see the blows coming long before they landed, sidestepped and redirected most of them.  But he was running out of time, and he wasn’t here to kill this man.  So Stiles took the drunk by the face and did the first thing he could think of, which was to kiss him deeply, to _taste_ him past himself and deeper, into the part that wasn’t him, into the part that was driving him.

He dropped the unconscious man as soon as he grabbed hold of the spell that had been driven into him and followed it the way the Drow had chased him down, incapacitating the source just a few buildings down.  He’d passed right by the place on his way there.  The woman had kept herself well hidden with the decoy that she’d used.

But he’d found her anyway, and this time by the feel of it he thought he’d probably got it right.  He thought maybe he could feel the girls in there too.  Bright, young spirits.  But calmed.  Unnaturally so.  The whole little house was still.  Muffled like a soundproofed room and screaming wrong wrong wrong to Stiles.  He moved through it fast, feeling supersonic in the quiet, pushed through the door to the girl’s bedroom and broke the woman’s neck before she even turned to look at him.

She had been his target, he hadn’t gotten it wrong, but Stiles knew it had been far too easy.  By the time she’d hit the floor, he thought maybe he’d figured it out.  A few second’s investigation pulled it all together, bright and clear, and he could hear the story unspooling in his mind in the voice of the kid that he once was.

The two girls were lying side by side in a small bed, asleep too deeply for it to be natural.  They were young but not too young, about seven or eight, maybe, and would have looked like twins if one hadn’t clearly been older than the other.  They both had white dust on their lips, and there was the same dust on a little spoon and a little bowl on the bedside by the chair the mother had been sitting in.  

By the feel of it, the powder was bone dust.  It was a texture Stiles would never mistake for anything else.  The energy it emanated and the woman’s hand, bandaged but still clearly missing a pinky, told him that the dust was from her bones.  Stiles noticed, looking at her feet, that she was missing all her toes as well.  Those scars were older, though.  Most fully healed.

The whole thing puzzled him until he could feel a tug around him, feel something start to pull itself out of some nether world, following the webwork of darkness that the woman had woven around herself.  It was coming back, having left the woman, prepared to seat itself in not one but two homes this time.

_It_ , now and not _her_.  It had never really been her, then, most likely embedded into the woman long ago, the way she had lain down the path for it to bury itself in her daughters, undetected, late at night and early enough in the host’s life that the line between it and her was rendered insubstantial.  The bone dust was an anchor, a way for it to hook itself on, a place from which to spread.

Stiles might not have know its name or origin, although he figured it was ancient, older than the human race, maybe older than the land itself,  but he knew how to deal with it.  And he was ready for it, too.

He had a little bottle tucked away just for this kind of thing.  Made of bone as well, empty, but lined with an essence, with the feel of something human, living and organic.  He tipped the last of the woman’s bone dust into it.  Moving as fast as he could, feeling the creature getting closer by the second, he laid the girls down on to the ground, set the bottle at their heads and pulled out his sickle of a claw.  

The spirit coming could be tricked, but it would have to be worn out before it took the bait, before it would mistake the bottle for the home that it was looking for, before it would graft itself to the inert matter that was in it.  And Stiles would have to fight hard to keep it from the girls before that point.  The claw was made for this.  It might have been useless against a Drow in magical armor, but it was spelled to cut through the insubstantial, to shred it the same way that a banshee might have.

He crouched low over the girls, the way a beast might who was as used to fighting on four feet as well as two.  He bared his fangs and raised his hackles and laid claim to his ground the way he’d seen done above his broken body one too many times.  He was ready when it came.

The fight was delerium.  Or maybe it was a dream.  Or maybe it was real, more real than any waking moment had ever been.  He didn’t know and didn’t really care, just held his ground, kept casting his protection over the girls like a man holding his hand over someone’s mouth during a hurricane.  He held his ground.  He was ripped apart, inside and out, but it was nothing compared to all the ways that he’d been bled before, and all the magic and all the gods running in his blood kept him from shredding into pieces, kept him awake and kept him standing until a mighty bolt of lightning shattered a tree next to the house into toothpicks and ran fire through all the cheap wiring in the house, lighting the walls on fire in horizontal lines, running from socket to socket, and the evil spirit finally bolted right into the little bottle Sties had set out for it.

Things got pretty blurry after that.  Stiles remembered being careful not to touch the bottle when he picked the girls up, remembered kicking the door off its hinges on his way out, remembered trying to get as far from the burning house as he could before he blacked out completely from exhaustion, remembered feeling surprised at how cold the ground felt under him, thinking he wished he could put something under the girls before he set them down, they shouldn’t have to lay on something that cold, and then he remembered absolutely nothing.

 

He came to with a gasp and came up ready to fight until a hand patted him on the shoulder.  “Easy, there, boy.  You’re alright”

Stiles looked around wildly for a second, realized he was on a small hill a few blocks from the house, looking down on its white hot blaze.  The man sitting next to him was the same one who had taken him to the old man. 

He had to clear his throat weakly before he could croak, “The girls?”

The man nodded a little, still watching the fire.  “They’re alright, too.”

Stiles looked down at the fire, too.  Seemed like that was all anyone was doing.  There was frantic effort at its perimeter, men assiduously keeping the blazes from spreading, but no one was trying to douse the house itself.  There was really not much left of it, just a house-shaped blaze and a black cloud disappearing into the black sky.

The man gestured briefly.  “We figured it was best to let it burn.  You think that will be enough to stop it?”

Stiles nodded emphatically.  “Should be.  As long as no one else went in after we came out.”

The man shook his head.  “We all know better.”

After a few more minutes, Stiles added, “Lucky we were hit by that lightning.”

The man laughed as he nodded.  “Well, my mother always said that the old man was stubborn enough to bring down lightning if he wanted it.  Guess she was right.”

Stiles knew the old man was dead as soon as he was mentioned.  He knew it like it was a given.  He sent a prayer out, and thanks.

 

If he had been expecting thanks himself (and maybe, somewhere deep inside he had been), he didn’t get any.  He just got asked to leave, as soon as possible.  He was asked not to talk or even look at anyone.  The man dropped his car keys in the dirt in front of Stiles and told him the tank was full of gas, walking off with talk of needing to be purified.

He got it.  These people, they didn’t like dead things.  And Stiles, well, he was full of death.

 

All that he was good for, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh, I'm sorry. So very very sorry.


	30. never stopped to think

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _If that was wrong in the cold light of day, well, it wasn’t in the light of his goddess’ moon, and it was to her beat that he danced, to her razors that he bared his neck._

After that, he threw himself into it.  Feet first, no doubts, no questions.  He would get that _feeling_ and he would know, right then.  No need to wait for evidence, just the opening, the slip, the perfect moment.  

Most times, the evidence was right there waiting for him, anyway.  Drunken frat boys in a gang bang.  Black widows in nursing homes.  Gang members cooking up hot shots.  Evil men and women, with weapons, with fists, with power.  And victims.  Always victims.

It was the nature of the beast that they would be as scared of him as they were of their victimizers.  He wasn’t exactly gentle.  And he was very very powerful.

 

And when it started getting to him, if the small _what if_ started getting louder, he would make himself the bait.  He would send himself into the night, unarmed... Well, okay, not unarmed.  (Hell, strip him naked and duck tape him to a flagpole, and he still couldn’t exactly be considered unarmed.)  He would go out _less well_ armed.  And get himself fucked up.  Get himself in trouble.  Ran it up the flagpole, so to speak.

Some nights, it was an entirely different player who would salute.  Some nights even ended with semi-awkward morning-afters and sometimes even cups of coffee.  They always ended, right then and there, though.  Cold light of day, and all that.

After all, he had work to do.

Other nights, it was work.  The kind of work he liked, though.  The kind of night when right and wrong were glaringly obvious and those intending harm completely underestimated him.  (They always did.  It never failed.  None of them were ever as able as Bishop had been, none of them could ever see through him.) 

Those nights ended in blood.  Glorious streams of blood running into gutters, into dirt, into manicured lawns.  And he’d gotten pretty good, too.  Good enough that it rarely ever was his blood soaking the ground, paying tribute.  He had to be honest, though.  He’d gotten to like the taste of it.  If that was wrong in the cold light of day, well, it wasn’t in the light of his goddess’ moon, and it was to her beat that he danced, to her razors that he bared his neck.

 

_(He ever thought about who else could see right through him.  He never thought about the man he’d slept beside but never bared his neck to, never kneeled in front of, never begged anything of.  Never thought about him at all.  Stiles was alone, that was all.  Stiles was nothing.  He was the whisper of blood on a knife, he was a shiver and a bad memory, and had no right to any other claim.  Like friendship.  Or family.  Or love._

_Never thought about it at all.)_

 

He was also damned good at never getting caught.  He presented the world with a moving target.  Learned how to tap into the flow of movement and traffic and it got so that he knew the routes far better than he knew the names of places.  No one could ever pin him down.

He’d also gotten very good at never leaving evidence.  He had been pretty good at it already, but with the amount of corpses he was leaving around, he had become meticulous.  Magic helped with that as well.

Magic helped with everything, and he was in it, it was a part of him dug in so deeply that spells were coming as easy as breathing, as easy as thinking.  He danced with that, as well.

 

_(And never admitted, even to himself, who he was really hiding the evidence from.  Whose eyes he was really trying to avoid._

_But he missed his dad.  He really did.)_

 

The truth was that he never stopped to think.  That was the trick of it.  He reaped and he moved on.  He didn’t question, he moved.

It was how you stayed alive, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get the feeling something is about to happen?  
> That's because it is.


	31. playing with fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He thought maybe he lost track of a few days, he wasn’t sure, there were a lot of drugs involved and a definite dereliction of duty_

Doubt or no doubt, Stiles knew it wouldn’t last forever.  And sure enough, his adventure as an agent of Supreme Justice derailed somewhere in Flagstaff.  It was bound to happen.  He was only human, after all.

You know what they say about playing with fire?

Stiles hated those pat little bites of wisdom.  Might even be the reason why he kept playing with fire or poking bear-wolves or playing the curious cat.  Maybe.  Or maybe he’d gotten, if it was a thing that could have been said about the life he’d come to live, stuck in a rut.  

Or maybe there was no good reason for it, maybe it was just the way the glorious blond wild-child strolled into the nightclub, took one look at Stiles and locked in on him with a force that had Stiles meeting him half way. 

After all, like knows like.

Stiles knew a death spiral when he saw one, too, and in this young man he saw one of such proportion that Stiles just couldn’t turn away.  This kid was an unholy mess about as grandiose as Stiles had become, and there was no way in hell either of them were going to leave the place without the other.  He was beautiful, with a mad glint in his eye that stole Stiles’ breath away, as lean and ragged as an alley cat, with hands that cut through the air like knives.  Or wings.  Stiles had found himself his very own fallen angel to play with, and oh holy hell did this creature want to play.

He thought maybe he lost track of a few days, he wasn’t sure, there were a lot of drugs involved and a definite dereliction of duty, but maybe it was time to retire anyway.  Maybe even, if the dice fell wrong, it was time to retire from the living altogether.

After all, he’d seen a lot of death recently, and it didn’t scare him much anymore.  In fact, he’d kind of started to develop the opinion that maybe he wasn’t one single ounce better than the bastards he’d been killing.  He was a mass murderer, after all, and society had good reason to look at mass murderers, even vigilante mass murderers, with an unfavorable eye.  At least he thought there were good reasons.  He’d sort of lost the thread at some point, but he was going to take it on faith that there were lots of good reasons why Killing Was Bad.

There were lots of things about Stiles and Lucas that were probably Bad and Wrong. 

_(Like the way Lucas would point at a man and say ‘get his drugs for me,’ and Stiles would, with a tiny flourish of magic that only Lucas could see.  Lucas never questioned it.  He was already living in a world in his own mind where these things made perfect sense.)_

_(Or the way Lucas would say ‘I don’t like her,’ and with a single little push from Stiles the girl would sprout a nose bleed so bad she’d have to leave the after-after party in an ambulance.)_

_(Or the way they would, together, pick a third and carry them along for a while, like a leaf in a hurricane, dropping them miles away from anything they’d ever known.)_

_(Or the cutting and scratching, the biting and blood when they fucked, always fighting for the top and losing in equal measure, losing themselves to the other and the wicked pleasure they’d inflict.)_

There was probably a lot wrong with the two of them.

And even though he wasn’t following a god-drawn path, Stiles couldn’t say what he was thinking.  In fact, if pressed, he’d probably have to admit he still wasn’t thinking.  At all.  Truth be told, he stopped thinking altogether the minute the two of them fell into each other. 

Wasn’t thinking when they stole the slickest car they could find and Lucas said they should drive it into the desert until it ran out of gas.  Wasn’t thinking when the car finally died and they had no clue where they were.  Didn’t even question it when Lucas shot Stiles up with all the shit that they had left.  Wasn’t even capable of thinking after that, when Lucas walked off, saying something about finding snakes to play with.

When he finally came to, Stiles found Lucas a couple hundred feet away, dead from a snake bite on his neck.  Clearly, Lucas had been thinking.  It had to have taken some work, getting the snake to bite him right where he wanted it and not just on the most immediate appendage.  

He’d been dead for a while, rigor already setting in, and Stiles was completely stunned by how wrecked this death made him feel.  Even if he’d known, on some level, that it wasn’t going to end well, he couldn’t quite stomach the idea of this wild spirit being stilled so permanently.  But why this death should matter more than any other, he couldn’t say.  Maybe that was just the kind of bastard that he was.

But it did matter, so Stiles laid Lucas’ body to rest back in the sleek black sports car, on a bed of tinder, tumbleweeds, and whatever other flammable and possibly explosive material he could find.  There were flares in an emergency kit in the trunk.  Like a little piece of providence.   

Didn’t take much to get that fucker raging like another proper viking funeral.

How long had it been since last he set a car on fire?  He hadn’t gone full circle, though.  It was more like he’d spiraled out in a ballistic arc, passing over what had once been while still remaining miles out from it.

 

But really, if he thought about it, he shouldn’t have found it as surprising as he did to hear the voice that cut through the crackling incendiary roar of his last friend’s lonely funeral.

He did, though.  It made his heart stop for a full few beats when he heard it.

“So, did you kill him, too?”

That arrogant bastard always knew when he had the right to judge, and always took advantage of it, too.

Stiles’ first reaction was to straighten his spine defensively.  His second was to run like hell.

He didn’t look up, just bolted and ran, even while a mocking dead-sober voice in the back of his head was pointing out how useless it was to run, how much he’d beat up his body, how out of shape he’d gotten.  How practically impossible it was that he could either outrun or hide from a werewolf.  Especially not one that knew him so well.

He lagged.  Pathetically quickly, really, he tripped over his own feet and landed face first int he dirt.  He didn’t bother to move, just lay there trying to catch his breath as a pair of boots caught up to him.  _Sauntered_ up to him.  And that voice was just as mocking and amused as it ever was.

“No, really, don’t stop on my account.  If you like I can even shut my eyes and count to ten.  I could use a little exercise.  Chasing you down has been seriously cutting into my workout time.”

Stiles pushed up on his elbows and rolled over.  “Sure, Derek.  Like we both don’t already know that you could live on a diet of ding-dongs and you’d still look as cut as a greek god.”

Like it nothing had ever happened.  Like every fucking fiber in Stiles’ being wasn’t keening at seeing the man again, like the way Stiles’ heart was beating out of his chest had nothing to do with Derek, and everything to do with the three-second sprint he’d failed so magnificently at.

But Derek wasn’t having it.  Derek wasn’t going to pretend, just like Derek never let Stiles run and hide from anything. 

His voice, though, it shook Stiles.  It was softer than he’d ever thought it would be, it was worried, and sad, and confused, and it gutted Stiles completely.

“Stiles, what the fuck are you doing?”


	32. long past the point

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Stiles had lain back again, looking up at the blue-white sky and the black cloud of smoke pluming up from a short distance away, and ignored his question completely. As usual. Derek was surprised at how much that relieved him.  
>  “So,” his voice was as ragged as he looked. “Are you gonna kill me?”_

There was a long silence after the question that had been eating Derek up ever since he caught a solid lead on the kid.  Interesting, though, that Stiles wasn’t rushing in to fill it with whatever noise he could get his mouth to make, whatever words he could find to hide behind.

Maybe he’d changed.  Then again, maybe it was just that some things were way too big to be able to hide from.  Like the body count that had just kept on growing, each one with some tiny marker, some little give away that only someone with Derek’s skill-set and prior knowledge of the kid could spot.  

Figuring he wasn’t going to get any kind of straight and easy answer, Derek eased on to the rocks beside Stiles, moving slow so as not to spook the kid, ignoring the wolf within and its dire need to rub against, to hold, to snuffle and assure himself that Stiles was, in fact, in one piece.  Ignoring the man as well, and all the urges that he carried.  He stilled himself, guarded his heartbeat as carefully as he might have if Stiles was a born wolf.  He had to, around Stiles.  Kid was perceptive as fuck, really.

Although probably he shouldn’t give him that much credit at the moment.  He looked completely wasted, on the ragged end of a days-long bender that Derek had had to watch from the sidelines.  And oh, how it killed him to have to keep himself in check, how desperately he had wanted to just walk up to him and shake some sense in him.  But Derek knew better, knew how it looked to mankind when an older man laid his hands on a protesting kid who really, front as he might, still looked like a minor in most lights. (Until he took his shirt off, but again, Derek was keeping all his urges in check.  Regardless of how desperate and hungry this chase had left him.)

Stiles had lain back again, looking up at the blue-white sky and the black cloud of smoke pluming up from a short distance away, and ignored his question completely.  As usual.  Derek was surprised at how much that relieved him.

“So,”  his voice was as ragged as he looked.  “Are you gonna kill me?”

As much as Derek couldn’t keep himself from thinking of Stiles as a kid in many ways, he still thought that Stiles had no right to sound quite so young and lost.  He bit down on that thought, though, and took a breath before he answered.

“Why would I do that, Stiles?”  Off the top of his head, he could actually think of a number of reasons why he’d be justified, but he needed to hear them from Stiles himself, needed to know exactly how far from the beaten path Stiles’ mind had drifted.

“Maybe because I shot your uncle’s arm off?”

Pretty far, then.  “And Idaho?  Texas?  Kansas?  Two, in Kansas, if I’m right.  New Mexico.  Colorado, Nevada, Arizona... should I go on?”

Stiles rolled his head, letting out a small _phht_ before he spoke.  “Those people were fuckers.  They got what they had coming to them.  By all rights, you should be thanking me for it.  Even Peter deserved it.”

Stiles was way too smart to be righteous.  Smart enough that Derek knew all he had to do was give him enough rope.

“I should be thanking you for shooting my uncle’s arm off?  For murdering people?”

Stiles shot him a scathing look that said he knew exactly what kind of a point Derek was trying to make and didn’t appreciate it in the slightest.

“Really, Derek?  You’re getting high and mighty with me?  _You_?”

That... well, that kind of stung.  A little.  Okay, no, it hurt a lot.  After all these years of dealing with people who knew _what_ he was but never tried to find out _who_ he was, he thought he was over the fact that they would judge.  But it still hurt.  Especially coming from Stile’s mouth, who ought to fucking well know better.  

And of course, the least helpful part of his brain, the one that sounded most like Uncle Peter, just had to chime in with the observation that using the words _fuck_ , _Stiles_ , and _mouth_ in such close proximity was no way to keep his mind focused.  And that maybe that was a part of the problem, right there.  Stiles could screw up is equilibrium just by breathing.  (And again with the word choice.  He just couldn’t win.)

Head.  In.  The.  Game.  “Yeah, Stiles.  _Me_.  The guy who has, since the day we met, been trying to teach your best friend how _not_ to murder people.  Do you realize that the first person to ever die by my hand was my uncle?”  (He tried like hell not to cringe at his own word choice, not to feel the mocking sneer in the back of his mind) “And even then, I’m not sure there was any way I could have done it if I hadn’t known–”  

Dammit.  What was it about this kid that always had him saying more than he meant to?

Stiles sat up a bit, listening to Derek.   “No, don’t stop there, Derek, please.  Hadn’t what?  Known that your uncle was going to get himself resurrected by mind-raping Lydia until she would have done just about anythi–”

“No.  I didn’t know that.  I just knew he wouldn’t stay dead.  I knew he’d figure out a way to come back.”  

And how was it that a handful of sentences in, he was already on the defensive?  But then again, this was Stiles he was dealing with.  He could probably get the freaking Pope riled up.  And he could tell, from the glint in his eye, that Stiles wasn’t going to let this one go easy.

“How did you know that, Derek?  How, exactly, could you know?”

It was a hard bit of truth to give up, but maybe Stiles deserved it.  “Because.  Because I knew he wasn’t done.”

Stiles blew out an exasperated breath.  “Done with what, Derek?  Done how?  I swear to Christ, getting any answer out of you is like–”

“Done with getting even, okay?  Done with his revenge or justice or whatever you want to call it.  He wasn’t done.  All that time in the burn ward, he should have been dead, his mind should have been shot, and there was only one thing keeping him around.  I knew he’d figure out a way to come back because he wasn’t done setting things to right.”

Stiles was shaking his head, thinking fast even through the drug crash that was making his eyes look bruised.  He was going to put it together and Derek was going to have to say it out loud. 

“No,” Stiles said, still shaking his head, “That doesn’t make sense.  He’d killed everyone that had set the fire.  He’d gotten his revenge.  There wasn’t anyone left.”

Jesus.  Even talking about it made Derek feel like he was seventeen.  He couldn’t hide an ounce of the pain he still carried.  “No, Stiles.  Think about it.  Someone had to let Kate in.  _I let Kate in._ ”  

That might have been the first time he said it out loud.

Stiles’ eyes got wide as he soaked that in with a blown out “Fuck.”  It didn’t take him long to recover.  “Yeah, but you were, how old?  You couldn’t have possibly known–”

Now it was Derek’s turn to shake his head, “Doesn’t matter, Stiles.  It’s still my fault.  My fault my whole family is dead.  My fault they were _incinerated_  in their own home.My fault my uncle lost his kids and his wife, had to watch them die and there was _nothing_ he could do about it.  If it wasn’t for me, none of it would have happened.”

It hurt to say all that, to finally hear it coming from his own mouth.  But it felt right.  It felt like it _should_ hurt.

“Finally.  I was starting to wonder if I’d have to wait for a death bed confession from you, Nephew.”  

And didn’t Peter just have the most perfect timing in the whole wide world?  Every single fucking time.  It was like he lurked around just waiting to make the perfect entrance.  

Stiles reacted.  _Moved_ like he wasn’t half dead from self-abuse.  Might have even gotten close to Peter if Derek hadn’t been between them and half a step ahead in reaction time.  Even as it was, he could hardly hold Stiles back.  The kid was _ready_ , without an ounce of hesitation.  Fucking _snarling_ , for fuck’s sake, and if Derek didn’t get him to ease up soon, some serious shit was going to go down.  The kid was _sparking_ under his fingertips.

“Dammit Peter, is this really the time?  And Stiles, fuck– _Stiles!_   Pull it the fuck together!  He’s not here on some mission of evil.  For god’s sake, there’s not much he could do against two of us, anyway.  I mean, you already shot his arm off.  He’s just here to give us a ride.”  As if spouting off at the mouth was going to do a damn thing to diffuse the situation.

“A ride?” Then again, maybe it would.  And for some unfathomable reason, that was the tidbit that slowed Stiles down.

So he went with it.  “Yeah.  A ride.  My rental blew out miles away.  Good thing you insisted we get those ridiculous satellite phones you kept going on about, or else we’d be walking the whole day to get out of here.”

“That’s right, boys.  Just call me Jeeves...”

And what the fuck had he ever done in all of his past lives to get stuck in the middle of a freaking wasteland with the two members of the human race least likely to leave good enough alone?  Thankfully, this time a hard shove and a low growl kept Stiles at bay.  Or at least somewhat lucid.

“No.”  He was spitting as he talked, gritting his teeth and hardly closing his lips, and Derek had to wonder at the sight of it, of how instinctual it looked, how like an angry dog he was.  Even Peter seemed stilled at the sight.  “No. I am not going anywhere with that motherfucker.  I’d rather walk for the rest of my fucking _life_ than sit anywhere _near_ that fucker.”

Amazingly, Peter backed down.  Even lost some of that gleeful glint he always had in his eyes whenever shit got hard.  “All right.  Enough.  Calm down, I was going to run anyway.”  He took a couple steps back, inviting Derek to follow with a look.

Inviting, though.  Asking.  Peter never did that. 

So Derek followed, even if Stiles was pissed as hell about it.  He made sure to stay in Stiles’ line of sight, though.  Just in case.  On everyone’s account.

Peter ducked his head, talked about as quietly as he might have if Stiles had been a wolf.  “I know you said he was a mess, Derek, but this...”

Derek rolled his eyes.  He had little more than that to say about it.  It had burned that he’d had to ask Peter for help in the first place.  “What’s your point, Uncle?”

“Nothing, really.  Just that I heard all of that.”

“And?”  He could hear Stiles’ voice in the back of his head, asking him to get to the point.  Payback was a bitch

Peter took a deep breath.  Moved one hand, slowly and very very carefully to Derek’s face.  “Just that, you were right.  I was sticking around because of you.  But, well... after hearing you say it, and after seeing _this_ ,”  He pointed to the whole desert scene as if it encompassed something more than random madness and tragedy, “I don’t know.  I guess I’m just done.”

His voice sounded lighter.  Like the man Derek might have known when he was a kid, he wasn’t sure, he couldn’t really remember.  “Done?”

“Yeah.  Done.  With the whole vengeance-justice-whatever thing.  Seems kind of unnecessary at this point.  The kid is right.  You _didn’t_ know what you were doing.  And yet, you aren’t ever going to forgive yourself for it, are you?  Don’t think I could hurt you any worse than that.  And now, you have _him_ to deal with.  Really, there’s nothing left for me to do here.”

Derek wondered what the fuck he was talking about for half a second and then looked back at Stiles.  Standing still.  Dead calm and ready to spring in whatever direction necessary.  Tried to picture him walking through a busy school hall and got only white noise and blood out of the thought.  

The kid was a mess.  Maybe a lifetime’s worth of a mess to clean up, and even if it had been Stiles’ own choices that got him there, Derek wasn’t going to kid himself into thinking that he hadn’t done it, at least in some part, for him.  

He was also long past the point where he was capable of hiding how much Stiles meant to him.  How much he mattered.

Derek didn’t even turn to look when he heard Peter’s low huff of a laugh.  “Oh yeah.  You two are _quite_ the pair.”

He didn’t turn to watch his uncle leave, either.  Just ambled back to Stiles, trying to figure what his next best move might be to get the kid’s compliance.  Maybe an offer of curly fries and steak would do the trick.  God knows, Derek could eat.

Truth be told, it was the first time he actually felt like eating since the day his uncle had come limping into the house, covered in blood, missing an arm, and very oddly quiet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, kids. I'm not done with these two yet.  
> Hope Peter's exeunt didn't leave y'all flat. Truth be told, he kind of showed up out of the blue.   
> Figured I should let him have his say.  
> Glad you're liking it, and if you've stuck around this long- bless you  
> : )


	33. hair-trigger reaction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _But you took what the world gave you, and if it gave Derek a little luck, an emotional breakdown and an irresistible junkie, he wasn’t going to turn his back on it. And he wasn’t going to let Stiles get away again. No matter how Stiles felt about the matter._

Feeding Stiles was a good call.  It made him docile enough that he hardly even flinched when the waitress put her hand on his shoulder to lean in and refill Derek’s coffee.  Docile enough, but far from calm.  Derek could see it in the way Stiles was looking around, the twitchy way he couldn’t let himself relax completely, even while the drug crash and full belly were doing everything they could to make him shut his eyes.

Stiles was going to bolt, although probably not yet.  If Derek played it right, he might even get the kid to sleep a while before he tried, but he could tell that Stiles wasn’t planning on sticking around.  And if Derek lost him this time, he doubted there was a chance in hell he’d be able to find him again.  Hell, he couldn’t even take credit for running him down in the first place.  That was all Stiles’ doing.  

If he hadn’t started throwing so many careless spells around, Lydia wouldn’t have been able to locate him half as accurately as she did.  If he hadn’t gotten so fucked up that he ended up staying any in one place just a little bit too long, Derek would once again be looking at a cold trail, counting corpses in ditches and morgues, getting nowhere but more and more desperate.  Even if Stiles _had_ stuck around, if he’d been halfway plugged in to his senses Derek bet that Stiles would have sensed he was there, would have spotted him a mile away, would have known when it was time to run.

But you took what the world gave you, and if it gave Derek a little luck, an emotional breakdown and an irresistible junkie, he wasn’t going to turn his back on it.  And he wasn’t going to let Stiles get away again.  No matter how Stiles felt about the matter.

Both of them startled just a little when Derek’s phone buzzed in with a text.  It was Lydia, and Derek shot back a short answer.

Stiles crooked his head a little, “Scott?”

Derek cringed inwardly but managed to hide it, not having taken into account all the changes that Stiles had set off but still knew nothing about.  “Ah, no.  That was Lydia.  She was helping.”

Stiles’ reactionary jump in heart rate took Derek by surprise.  “Wait, _Lydia_?  What, did you bring everybody in on this?  I swear to god, Derek, if this is some kind of bullshit intervention I will burn this place down, I don’t care how many people–”

“Hey, hey, take it easy there, outlaw,”  Derek interrupted, lifting his hands, “Nobody’s here, nobody even knows _I’m_ here except Lydia and Peter, okay?  She came to me, she said she thought she knew how to find you.”

That was close enough to the truth to pass by unnoticed, but it would have been more accurate to say that she pulled him out of the ditch he was wallowing and told him to get his ass in gear because if she had to have any more fucked up Stiles-related nightmares she was going to start killing people herself.  

At the time he had thought that had been figurative on her part.  Even after he started finding bodies, he’d had one hell of a time trying to reconcile the Stiles he knew with the cold trail of corpses he had been leaving behind. 

Stiles looked like he was a deep breath shy of total panic, so it was possible that even he was having a hard time bringing everything he left behind into this new world he’d carved out for himself.  Derek watched him silently as Stiles twirled a fork in his fingers, tapped it in an aborted beat on the table, tossed it down, slouched and finally pushed out of his seat and made a beeline for the bathroom.

Derek was perfectly okay with this.  He didn’t doubt for a second that Stiles was going to try to make a run for it, but he was sitting between Stiles and his only means of escape.  The bathroom had no windows or alternate exits and the kitchen was locked out.  He’d known this in advance.  

He’d actually compiled a mental list of all the acceptable diners and gas stations along the way based on hidden bolt-holes and access to alternative means of transportation.  He’d had a feeling Stiles wasn’t going to come in easy as soon as he  had seen the decimated jeep.

 

~~~

 

The minute Stiles heard the phone buzz with a text, he broke out into a cold sweat he could only explain a throwback from the days of hunter-hunting.  The phone had been a life-line and almost always a four-alarm fire alert, and after they had all switched their ring-tones to match, Stiles had developed a hair-trigger reaction to that particular buzz.  That had been the point at the time, but not something he’d even bothered to consider as problematic in his new life.

Apparently it was, adrenaline kicking in with the immediate thought that the pack was in trouble, followed hot on its heels by the thought of being around the pack, of the pack seeing him, of not being capable of hiding what he had become, of having them find out all about what he’d done and fuck if he couldn’t just picture their faces.  He could see clear as day all the judgement, pity and fear they wouldn’t even think of hiding.  _That_ thought filled him with nausea and the urgent need to run.

He tried, for a valiant few seconds, to stick it out, to breathe through the fear and find whatever courage he needed to deal with the idea of the pack, of Scott in particular... Scott... Scott’s mom... Stiles’ dad... 

That was about when the thought getting the fuck out of there was a better option than any other, regardless of the assurances Derek was making about no one knowing.  You couldn’t keep secrets from pack.  Stiles knew that as well as anyone did.

The bathroom might have been an obvious choice, but he was pretty low on options.  He tried not to tighten up like a guilty man as he walked away but it was kinda hard with the way he could feel Derek’s eyes boring into his back.  He was calculating how much lead time he could possibly get before Derek came looking when he stopped dead in his tracks in the middle of the bathroom.  A couple stalls, a couple urinals and nothing but walls.  Hell, even the ceiling was solid.  Fuck.  He’d forgotten who he was dealing with.

Stiles splashed water on his face and made the stupid mistake of looking at himself in the mirror.  Whatever he’d been expecting, it wasn’t the mad-eyed darkly tanned creature he was looking at.  He almost didn’t look human and there was this desperate _something_ screaming in his eyes, bruised with exhaustion.  

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to think of _any_ damn thing that would calm his mind, find some way of dealing with the werewolf waiting outside, who knew exactly what he had been feeling when he ducked into the bathroom, would know what he was feeling when he went back out, and would, most likely, never miss a single detail about anything Stiles did or said.  Or hell, even thought, given how worn down Stiles was and how out of practice he was at hiding all his soft parts from near-prescient supernatural creatures.

Derek _always_ knew.  Had always known.  Even from the beginning, back when Stiles only figured it was even odds whether Derek wanted him out of his hair or just plain dead.

_He could remember Derek grabbing him by the collar, pulling him back and pushing him up against the wall.  Not hard, just solid heat, pressing up against him._

_“What is it that you want, Stiles?”_

_Their eyes locked on each other and Stiles could not move, even though some part of him just_ pulled _to duck his head, to speak to the ground.  Derek just raised his eyebrows and waited.  Fucking self-righteous eyebrows of doom._

_Stiles gasped and stammered for a second, trying to remember what sort of peace-keeping excuse of a mission he’d opened with._

_“Lydia.  Lydia’s planning on visiting.  Peter needs to... Peter...”_

_But he couldn’t finish, because Derek was smirking and his eyes were locked on Stiles’ lips.  He leaned in closer, taking a deep whiff of Stiles and his ever-present Lust For Derek.  At least, that was what Stiles assumed, judging by the way Derek was sliding his lips up Stile’s throat._

_Holy shit._

_This couldn’t... This..._

_Stiles’ brain froze, and for reasons he knew he’d never ever understand, he bolted._

_Derek never went that far again.  No matter how hard Stiles pushed and what they went through, it was a line he never crossed.  And as much as Stiles figured it was for the best, there were some nights it kept him up with an ache to think it could never be more._

 

Fuck it.  It was clear, just absolutely crystal clear that Stiles just couldn’t go back to that.  He’d already given all he could to keep the pack safe, to keep Derek safe, and he wasn’t going to be able to deal with the song and dance that had seemed like enough at the time but in the end just left him longing and lonely and had him doing stupid things like burning his whole life to the ground. 

He walked out of the bathroom and made a beeline for the door.  Figured he’d just put a brick through the car window to get his pack, rental be damned, and if Derek tried to stop him he’d just start yelling rape.  He didn’t look around, just followed his tunnel vision out of the door and into fresh air.

It was possible he should have looked around before he left.  At least then he wouldn’t have been quite so spooked when a hand wrapped itself around his elbow and Derek’s voice growled in his ear.

“Not even going to say goodbye?”

Stiles jerked his arm out of Derek’s grasp, still walking for the car.  “If I did, would you let me go?”

Derek didn’t answer, just kept pace with him, and Stiles snorted.  “Yeah.  Didn’t think so.  Now, are you going to let me get my stuff, or do I have to break a window?”

Derek’s jaw was as tight as Stiles had ever seen.  “Stiles, you can’t just run.  You can’t just keep running.  People need you, your dad needs–”

Stiles held his hand up, shaking his head.  “Nobody needs _me_ , Derek.  They’re better off just thinking of me as the kid who left town.  You think my dad’s bad off now?  How do you think he’ll deal with his son being a mass murderer?”

Derek shook his head.  “I told you, nobody even knows I’m here.  Lydia’s the only person that knows what you’ve been doing, and you know her, she won’t talk.  Nobody has to know a damned thing.”

He wasn’t buying that for a second.  “I know how it works, Derek.  These are the kind of things you can’t keep from your pack.  They’ll find out, sooner or later, and then Scott will, and once he knows–”

“Stiles, for fuck’s sake, you know I’m not lying.  _Nobody_ is going to know.  They need you, Stiles.”  Stiles hadn’t noticed how close Derek had gotten until he felt the car press cold into his back.  He jumped a little when Derek slid a hand up to his neck, thumb grazing his jaw.  His voice was little more than a quiet growl.  “ _I_ need you.”

Derek pressed his lips softly on Stiles’ mouth and something shuddered and loosened inside of him, something that had been tight and wanting for _years._

It was the dirtiest of the dirty fucking pool moves Derek could have ever pulled.  But even then, Stiles still let himself fall into the kiss, holding Derek’s face and _devouring_ it, because if it was the only one he was ever going to get, then he sure as hell was going to make it count.  He even debated letting it go on, seeing how far Derek was willing to lead him on to get his cooperation... but.

“No.”  Stiles pulled away with a gasp and a pant, “No, seriously, Derek, that’s fucked up.  If this is some kind of tactic to get me to stay...”

But Derek wasn’t listening.  Didn’t look entirely capable of listening.  Was staring at Stiles’ mouth like he was just about to whine before he finally just went back in for more, holding the back of Stiles’ head and kissing Stiles deep, his tongue everywhere, nipping and licking, then delving in hard and Stiles could only give in and give back just as hard until he was forgetting how to breathe. 

By the time Derek finally came up for air they were both panting.  He pressed his forehead against Stiles’, still not looking up, and his voice was all kinds of warm and desperate and broken.  “I swear to god, Stiles, please just for once in your life _shut up_.  If you talk, I’m going to start thinking, and if I start thinking I’m going to remember why this is the last thing I should–”

That time, it was Stiles’ turn.  On a good day, he’d have a hard time turning Derek down.  But add to that the desperate and fucking _hungry_ he could hear in Derek’s voice, and well, there was just no resisting that.  

He’d deal with the pain come morning.  He was almost sure it would be worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear to christ I was going to ease into it. They were just going to muck about all angsty and shit and, I don't know, eventually trip and fall on each other's faces or something.  
> And then this happened.  
> fuck it.  
> YOLO


	34. warm and wanting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He was going to see if he could make Stiles forget how to talk. Probably that was an unattainable goal, but it sure as hell was a good one to aim for._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for PORN.  
> Guess we're venturing into the realm of "explicit" here, so if you don't want any, don't read it.  
> You won't be missing anything other than HOT SHOWER SEX.

It was a bad idea.  Derek knew it was a bad idea, but he just couldn’t remember _why_.  All he knew was that seeing Stiles go, watching him leave with everything still unsettled and unsaid, when he could finally just _do_ something about it, admit need and want and weakness with no one at risk from it but himself and the strongest young man he’d ever known... well, his next move seemed obvious, and pretty damned unavoidable when he’d followed Stiles out to the parking lot and gotten close enough to smell his heat, buried under all the abuse, excess and magic he’d been through.  Stiles still wanted.  After everything he’d been through, he still wanted Derek, and that had to mean something.  

(They called it heat for a reason.  Not because it was a seasonal rut or some uncontrollable urge, but in fact because it was the opposite, a reaction of the body which the mind may or may not agree with, and never a cause for action without invitation, a physical reaction which at times was never even spoken about, because if they couldn’t give each other privacy, they could at least have the decency to fake it.)  

But the fact that only a few hours after being together, and even in the midst of panic, it was still there, for both of them, still there warm and _wanting_ – it had to mean something.  So he took a risk.  He said it out loud, took the smallest step forward, because having it out there was better than having Stiles gone and never getting another chance.

And of course, like with everything concerning Stiles, the whole thing got incredibly out of hand incredibly quickly, and less than ten seconds in Derek was beyond reason, gone and just hungry and for once, _for once_ , finally not holding back.

He had wanted Stiles for so long.

It was something he thought he’d never get to have.

He had no idea how they made it into the car and the only thing he could remember about the drive to the motel was sliding his hand up the inside of Stiles’ thigh and the way Stiles groaned and dropped his legs open, stretching forward into the touch.  It was a wonder Derek didn’t drive them straight into a ditch.  He certainly couldn’t vouch for the quality of his parking job, but then again, he didn’t much give a fuck.

Stiles had been biting his lips and they were already red and swollen.  Derek grazed a thumb over them and Stiles sucked it down to his palm, looking up through his lashes and oh holy fuck he nearly ripped the car door off its hinges.  Not fair that the little bastard still had enough braincells left to laugh at him, but he’d take care of that soon enough.

He was going to see if he could make Stiles forget how to talk.  Probably that was an unattainable goal, but it sure as hell was a good one to aim for.

It wasn’t his first rodeo, not by a long shot, but it was the first time in a long time that it meant more than a casual fuck with someone whose name he didn’t even want to know, and he was fumbling like a freshman on prom night.  Stiles finally grabbed the key card from him with a snicker.  

“Easy there, big boy.  You break that damned card and you have to go all the way to the office for a new one.  Don’t think you want to be doing that, what with the state you’re in.”

Derek looked at Stiles in confusion for a second, but Stiles cleared it all up with a huge grin and a hand pressed against the obscenely large bulge in Derek’s jeans before he slid inside the room.  Derek followed with a growl, and whatever Stiles had been getting ready to crack wise about was gone, lost in the _umph_ he made when his back hit the closed door and Derek pressed himself flush against Stiles, sliding a hand between them to palm Stiles in return and licking back into his mouth.

It got a whimper out of Stiles that ran like an electric shock down to the base of Derek’s spine.  When he pulled back, Stiles looked half-drowned and like he wasn’t tracking at all, nearly panting.  It was a good look on him.  

When his eyes focused, Derek gave him a toothy grin, “I like that sound.  Let’s see if we can get it out of you again.”

Stiles couldn’t fight down his own grin even while he was rolling his eyes.  “Great.  This is going to be like one of your take-no-prisoner’s training sessions, isn’t it?”

Derek smiled even wider, licking his lips before he answered.  “Probably.  I liked the noises you made then, too.”

And there was a moment, a spot in between breaths where he could see something just loosen in Stiles, heard him take a breath more full than before and whisper, almost soundlessly and just a little broken.  “Holy shit, I missed you.”

And oh hell, no.  If pressed, Derek might admit that his heart might have forgotten to beat for a couple seconds, but there was no way he was going to let things get maudlin and sentimental.  He was absolutely certain that Stiles would be in the next county before he could blink if Derek started in with endearments.  Derek would like to think he knew Stiles well enough to know exactly what Stiles really needed, especially then, when he looked like his whole world was flying apart at the seams.

And besides, “You stink.”

He did.  Now that Derek was close enough to smell him deeply, he practically itched to get the stench of drugs, stale sweat, burnt plastic and most of all, _others_ off Stiles.  It was on the edge of pissing him off, but that just added a little spice to the mix.  And he sure as hell knew Stiles wouldn’t mind.  

He was already starting to try to crawl under Derek’s skin, barking out a high laugh and countering, “Hey, I’m not the one with dog genes, here –”

He grabbed Stiles by the forearm and pushed him into the bathroom, not letting him get his footing, not letting him take any lead.  It was a matter of seconds and a few carefully unsheathed claws before Stiles was naked, eyes wide and skin breaking out in goosebumps, shivering.

Derek smiled, all wolf.  “Cold?”

Stiles was trying to keep his arms down, fighting the urge to cover himself while Derek’s eyes raked him.  He was smiling though, a small wicked smile that reassured Derek he was enjoying the power play as much as Derek was.  He didn’t talk, just shook his head. 

Derek took a second, leaning back against the sink, mouth watering at the sight.  Stiles had been hardened by the road.  He’d already had a nicely toned body, but the rigors he’d been under had used up any fat he had left, not left him gaunt, just lean and taut, sleek-muscled like a wild cat.  

Everything about Stiles looked wild, untamed, the claw still strapped around his neck, leather wristbands still wrapped on, the ink and scars of his personal history sitting like armor on his skin, and Derek wanted to see that body writhing over and under him, because of him.  Wanted to see it sweat, shudder and come apart just for him.

He neared Stiles slowly, reaching behind his neck to unclasp the dagger, and there it was, that _thing_ he’d always seen in Stiles that drove him past any point of sanity in his most private moments, the way Stiles would lift his chin, _almost_ bare his throat and then not.  The way he would still himself and look straight into Derek’s eyes. 

Stiles probably had no clue how much that undid him, how much it made him want to groan with need.  Not because he wanted Stiles’ submission.  The opposite, in fact.  It made Derek want him all the more because here was a man that _could_ look him in the eye.  A man that Derek couldn’t break, that would not let himself be taken, not by anything or anyone.  A force to match his own, capable of taking him on, capable of slaking Derek’s thirst, of taking what he needed from Derek as well, of leaving them both devastated and at peace, emptied out and whole.

He laid the necklace down carefully, showing it due respect, then grabbed Stiles by his throat and the back of his head and pulled him into a bruising kiss, showing him no respect at all, not letting him move an inch, just making him take it.  Derek could feel Stiles’ whole body shiver and writhe, trying to push closer, gripping Derek’s forearms like he was afraid of falling, gasping with a whine when Derek broke the kiss but didn’t let go of him.

“Strip me.”  Goddamn, he already sounded wrecked, about as wrecked as Stiles looked when he lowered shaking hands to Derek’s waistband and pulled up his henley, running his hands flat over Derek’s chest as he pulled the shirt up.  Derek stretched into the touch, watched Stiles, open-mouthed and licking his lips as he ran his hands back down Derek’s chest when the shirt hit the floor.

He kept his hands on Derek’s body when he sank down to his knees to take off Derek’s shoes, and Derek couldn’t help but think he looked a lot more reverent than submissive when he didn’t stand to unbuckle Derek’s belt and open his fly.  He slid his hands in easy, still touching with that broad-handed glide that was doing things to him, loosening him and starting a slow fire at the base of his spine.  

Stiles kept his hands to Derek’s thighs when he slid off his boxer briefs, but looked at Derek’s cock like a starving man, mouth dropped wide and panting.  Derek lifted Stiles’ head back with a finger under his chin. 

“Not yet.” He murmured, pulling Stiles back up to standing and leaning past him to turn on the shower.  

He could feel Stiles’ hands on his back and ribs, soft feather-like grazes that ran shivers through him.  When the water was right, he stepped in, pulling Stiles in with him, holding him under the hot water and savoring the way Stiles groaned with relief at the feeling.  How long had it been?  Probably far too long, and Derek knew just how blessedly good it felt.  He was running his hands all over Stiles body before he’d even had the chance to come down from that little high, standing behind him and taking his weight.  

After a moment he took Stiles arms by the wrists and pushed his hands on to the shower wall, smoothing them down firmly with his own hands as he breathed into Stiles’ ear, “Stay.”

That was all it took.  No tools or toys or fancy mind games.  He felt Stiles shudder hard again and heard a whispered “Fuck” but Stiles didn’t move, became solid and still and by all the little signs his body was sending out to Derek _wanting_ , desperately so.

So, Derek took his time, because never let it be said he wasn’t a bastard.  He soaped Stiles down, more than once, jacked him while he was slick, then stopped and moved on, teasing and overloading Stiles’ senses until Stiles was groaning constantly, making sounds he probably didn’t even realize and moving into Derek’s hands, making himself available to Derek, however Derek wanted, spreading his legs wider and tilting his ass out when Derek slid a finger down his cleft, and taking his finger in, smooth and easy.

Derek was three fingers deep inside of Stiles, hitting his prostate and jacking him hard when Stiles finally broke, finally sobbed, his forehead hitting the tile wall, “Oh, fuck Derek, Derek _please.  Want you, Derek._ ” 

Damn.  It was so good and beautiful and so very very tempting.  Except, “No, Stiles.  Can’t, not this close to the moon.”

He pushed his fingers deep and twisted, gripping Stiles’ cock tighter as he pulled, leaned his chin on Stiles’ shoulder and growled, “Come for me, Stiles,” right before he buried his teeth in Stiles shoulder.

Stiles came hard and long with a sobbing groan, taking it as Derek stripped him completely, then leaning back into Derek when he was done, boneless and blissed out, humming in the miracle that was the perpetual warmth of motel showers.  

He turned his head into Derek’s neck, kissing him sloppily and smiling into him, sliding his hand on to Derek’s cock.  He’d been so wrapped up in Stiles that he’d practically forgotten about himself, but as soon as he felt Stiles’ hand he realized how hard he was, how much he _ached_.  

Stiles‘ voice was soft, still blissed.  “I believe there were promises made, here.”

Derek couldn’t even talk, only hiss in a breath as Stiles slid down against him, turning as he went, swiping his tongue over the length of his cock before sucking him in, keeping his eyes on Derek’s the whole time.  He didn’t last but a few seconds, Stiles humming the whole time and licking him clean as Derek shuddered, holding himself up on Stiles’ shoulders.

 

They had to help each other out of the shower, leaned on each other as they toweled off, not so much for support as much as for touch, like now that they could, they didn’t want to stop.  Stiles slid under the blankets with a tired and utterly satisfied groan, pushing his back into Derek when he followed.  Derek wrapped his arms around Stiles and buried his nose behind Stiles’ ear, breathing him in deep, clean and warm and that smell of _him_ that his whole being had been broken without.  

“So, the moon?”  Dammit.  Sleepy as he was, Stiles still never let anything slip past.

Derek cleared his throat.  “Yeah.  The full moon.  Didn’t want to lose control and shift.”

“Really? Is that because you didn’t want to split me open on your giant werewolf–”

“Holy shit, Stiles, seriously?  Where the hell do you get your – you know what?  Never mind, don’t answer that.  Think about it, Stiles.  How do werewolves make other werewolves?”

He could fucking hear Stiles’ shit-eating grin.  “Well, if it’s not crazy werewolf knotting sex, then I guess by biting?  But then how are born wolves made?”

“Jesus, _knotting_?  Can we never _ever_ have this conversation again?  Born werewolves are made when two werewolves have sex in _human_ form.  I don’t know if werewolves have sex in wolf form.  It never really came up in family conversation, and it hasn’t been an issue in my personal life.  I can’t imagine it would go well, though.  Hard enough to control the wolf as it is.  Add sex to that and it would likely end in someone getting gutted and maybe eaten.  I was just worried I’d shift and bite you.  _Fuck_.”

He could feel Stiles shaking with a silent snicker and bit him on the shoulder, right where he had bitten him before, just to make him hiss.  There was already going to be a mark.  The thought made him happier than it probably should.

“Besides, Stiles, it’s not like there’s two separate creatures in me.  Any time I’m fucking you, my wolf is fucking you too.”

Stiles shuddered, pressing his hand against the bite, humming lightly.  “ _That_ should probably not turn me on half as much as it does.”

Derek let his body rumble in a soft growl, just to fuck with him.  “Something to keep in mind, then.”

Stiles stretched a little into him and chuckled soft.  “You bastard.”

It wasn’t long before he felt Stiles’ breath and heart slip into sleep, and Derek followed soon after, feeling safer than he had in ages.


	35. the taste of beer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _If he made it through this, he deserved every ounce of shit Derek would give him, especially since everything that happened was due to his own damned stupidity._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, for a brief moment in time, the theory had been floating around that the eye color was indicative of station, ie: red - Alpha, blue - Beta, gold - Omega.  
> (Personally I tend to like this more than whatever-thing proof-of-innocence whatever whatever it evolved into, so for the sake of this particular story, welcome to my headcannon, and if you don't like it write your own.)

Stiles’ eyes snapped open a few hours later.  He could never sleep more than a few hours anymore anyway, but if he was going to blame anything in particular on waking him up, he’d have to say it was the calm, comfort and safety he was feeling.  These things he was no longer used to at all.

Derek’s soft snore was achingly familiar, and he had to swallow hard around the lump in his throat as he slipped out from under the covers.  It was probably better this way, leaving before it got to accusations, anger and pain, leaving the night as a moment outside of his reality.  He looked at Derek carefully, catalogued the way their distance had changed him.  He looked older, even if it hadn’t really been all that long.  He looked worn out.

Stiles wished he could touch him, wished he could try to smooth some of the strain out of his face, but he knew that was folly.  Instead he said a little quiet spell into the bowl of his hands and blew it over the man, making sure he’d sleep through the night.

He’d gathered his things and was tying his shoelaces when a change in the quiet stopped him right before he felt a number of his tattoos flare with a sting and the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.  He lifted his head very, very slowly to meet Derek’s, fully shifted into Beta form, leaning forward and ready to pounce at the slightest move.

There was something wrong with Derek’s eyes, something he couldn’t place until Stiles whispered a quiet _hey_  and Derek responded with an animal snuff.  It came together then.  He could remember this look, it was the look of the Were' when the human side of Derek wasn’t there at all.  Stile’s spell had worked, only it was a spell that, clearly, certain kinds of creatures were unaffected by.  And what was it Derek had said about being this close to the full moon?

Stiles got a split second warning before Derek launched out of the bed at him.  Stiles dove and managed to get the chair between himself and it, scuttling back, trying to get as much furniture as possible between them, trying for a calming tone as he waited for another lunge.

“Derek, come on, you know you don’t really want to do this.  Just, just calm down a little, okay?  You don’t want to eat me, dude, I probably taste like ass...”

The creature was sinuous, moving as calm and assured as Stiles had ever seen him.  There was no threat in this room, as far as it was concerned.  No threat, only prey.  And as much as Stiles hated thinking of himself that way, the truth was he was out of practice and seriously under-prepared to fight a werewolf.

If he made it through this, he deserved every ounce of shit Derek would give him, especially since everything that happened was due to his own damned stupidity.  The spell was like time-released medicine, it had its own destruction built into it, and so Stiles hadn’t put much thought into how he might break it early, if need be.  He didn’t figure he would need to.

Running at this point would probably be useless and make his death even more vicious, there was nothing that Derek’s wolf liked more than a good chase ending in total dismemberment.  In short, Stiles didn’t have a fucking clue what he was going to do other than dodge until something happened.  

Derek was fucking _toying_ with him, his wolf having a more developed sense of humor than the man did, and was languidly following Stiles’ moves, watching him with amused attention up until Stiles got close enough to the door to reach for the knob.  As soon as Stiles stretched his arm out, he lunged, and even though Stiles managed to dodge the brunt of the attack, Derek did manage to rake a paw full of claws down his thigh.

Stiles was done for, he could hardly move with one leg out of commission, and actually managed to trip over his own feet before Derek climbed on top of him.  Stiles waited for the swipe to the jugular, a favorite move of Derek’s, he loved licking up the spray of blood that came out like a water fountain before he moved on to the midsection and its soft organs.  

But instead of a fast bleed out, he got one heavy paw on his ribs and another on his hip, and Stiles _finally_ realized what was happening.  Derek had said _bite_ and not _kill_ , hadn’t he?  He was going to make Stiles into another one of his very own Beta minions and there was no way in _hell_ Stiles was okay with that.  Also, the not-killing part gave Stiles a few more chances to fight back, and in the position he was in, Derek had made himself stupidly vulnerable.

 _Any animal that has balls has an immediate weak point, Stiles.  Any time they give you the opportunity, use it._   Derek’s very own words, and Stiles was not going to let that lesson go to waste.  He brought his uninjured leg up into Derek’s groin hard and fast, putting every ounce of strength he had into it, and lo and behold, Derek crumpled, rolling off of Stiles, looking and sounding considerably more human.  That must have been enough stimulation to break the spell, then.

“ _Motherfu_ – what the _hell_ , Stiles?!?”

Stiles could tell the second Derek registered the smell of blood.  He twisted back around, pain ignored if not forgotten, kneeling over Stiles and looking at his injured leg.

“I did this?  I thought I was dreaming.”

Stiles let out a weak laugh that became a hiss as Derek prodded him.  “Well, yeah.  You kind of were.”

Derek speared him with his best pissed-off murderous eyebrow glare.  “Let me guess, you had something to do with that, didn’t you?”

Stiles motioned him to calm, maneuvering gingerly.  “Yeah, yeah, whatever, whatever, we can talk about that in a minute?  Could you just help me get my pants off, I gotta clean the wou–”

He guessed he should have been a little more specific with the request.  Those had been his last pair of pants, and in a second flat they were nothing but rags.  He could have mended the tears.  It would have been better than wandering around in boxers.  Then again, if it meant keeping Stiles from leaving, Derek probably wouldn’t have cared about Stiles’ feelings on the matter, and pointing this out might have him shredding _all_ of Stiles’ clothes.

Derek helped Stiles into the bathroom and got the first aid kit out of his pack, not mentioning anything about the way his stuff had been packed up, sitting right by the door.  Once the wound had been properly cleaned and his entire thigh bandaged up, he helped Stiles hobble back to the bed.

He shut Stiles down when he started bitching about it.  “Don’t _even_ fucking ask me to take the pain.  You deserve every last ounce of this one.”

“Hey, at least your pain didn’t last long.  This thing’s gonna burn like a bitch for days.”

“Yeah?  Well at least I wasn’t the jackass trying to run away with a half-assed plan.  I mean, seriously, Stiles, what the fuck?  I thought we got past that point.”

And there it was, the elephant in the room.  Right when Stiles’ endorphins were starting to crash and he had no energy left for it.

“Sure, maybe you had, but you’re forgetting who you’re talking to.  Maybe ' _trust me, no one’s going to know'_ works on one of your Betas, but you’ll have to excuse me for being a little more skeptical than that.”

Stiles got no answer, just a serious quiet as Derek’s jaw worked and he stared at the curtains as if he could see what was going on past them.

“I mean, I’m sorry, Derek, I _know_ how packs work.  You can’t keep secrets from each other.  So even if _you_ think no one’s going to find out, _I_ know better.”

Derek looked down and his voice was softer than he ever really was.  “I thought you would have figured it out after you saw my eyes, Stiles.”  He finally looked looked up, flashing his werewolf eyes and holy shit how did Stiles miss that detail?

Derek’s eyes were yellow.

Stiles pulled himself up, his brain spinning into overdrive.  “Wait, you’re what?  You’re, you’re not Alpha?  So why were you going to bite me?  And does that mean Peter...?”

Derek shook his head.  “It's an instinct, Stiles.  It wouldn't have worked, but it's a hard urge to break.  And no, Peter’s never going to be an Alpha.  You made sure of that.  You can be an Alpha and be weak, and you can be an Alpha and be an asshole, but you can’t be both at the same time.”

“But then, who..?”

Derek looked at him, eyes human again and surprisingly calm.  “Scott.  He’s Alpha now.  You’d be surprised, he’s doing pretty well at it, too.”

Stiles shook his head, confused as hell, knowing there was some piece of it all he just wasn’t getting.  “So, Scott beat you, even with all your pack strength and shit.  How does that even happen?”

“No, Stiles, I gave it to him.  I made him Alpha.  Took a little time for the pack to come around, but eventually they did.  They’re a pretty tight unit, now.”

“You _gave_ Scott your position?  You put him in charge?  After everything you went through to make the pack?”

“Yeah.  After everything I went through to put together a pack of high school students who all went to the same school Scott did.  Think about it, Stiles.  What the hell is a grown-ass man like me doing bringing together a pack consisting of underage kids?  It was always supposed to be Scott’s.  After my uncle made him, after I met both of you, there just wasn’t a way in hell I could leave Scott high and dry in a territory he had no claim to that was also infested with hunters.”

“If that was the plan, then why didn’t you just say so?”

“Because Peter couldn’t know, and Scott had to want to be a part of the pack.  I thought you had figured it out, I thought that was why you shot Peter, got rid of the Argents and took off.”

Stiles shook his head a little.  “No, I had no clue.  I mean, yeah, I hoped that maybe with me and Allison gone, Scott would finally go to you, but not to be Alpha.  I never even imagined that.”

“And my Uncle, Stiles?”

After all the shit that bastard had pulled, why the hell did Derek have a right to sound like he still cared about the asshole?  It frustrated the crap out of Stiles, the way Derek _always_ kept him around, the way he _never_ listened.

“I shot him because he was going to kill everyone.  He was going to kill _you_. You don’t even know, Derek, how many different ways, how many plans he had.  He didn’t even _care_ about the pack, sometimes he’d kill them, sometimes he’d just take over, didn’t matter so long as–”

“I ended up dead.”  There was a breath which Stiles had no words to fill.  “I already knew that, Stiles.  I never would have let him hurt you guys.”

Stiles nodded, feeling tears start to threaten.  “Well, yeah, but every time you kept him from hurting us, he killed you.”  Stiles took a breath of his own, almost a gasp as things started to come together in ways he didn’t want to see.  “But you already knew that.  You didn’t _care_ that he was going to kill you.”  His voice was reduced to a dry whisper when he knew he was right, “You were going to _let_ him kill you, weren’t you?”

Derek couldn’t look Stiles in the eye.  He took a breath and started, “Stiles–”

But he couldn’t listen anymore, he couldn’t hear past the roar in his ears, tears starting in earnest.  “Oh, no, no, no, Derek, don’t you dare... don’t you...”

But he could see it now, and it made sense.  Everyone was dead.  His Uncle was alive in body, but was really nothing more than a maddened drive.  Derek thought of himself as culpable in his family’s death, maybe even in Laura’s death, in some weird self-flagellating logic, and he had nothing left but pain, guilt and memories.  

So he stuck around just to make right what he could, shaping the pack into hard fighters but never really getting _close_ to them, not in a way that mattered, not in a way that admitted any sort of need.  Probably did that on purpose, too, so that when Scott came in with his warm eyes and unending drive to give a fuck about everything, they’d cleave to him, not even realizing how starved for nurturing they had become.  Like the way they train companion dogs, hard and uncaring so that the minute they get their first hugs they never even think of turning their back on their new owner.

It would have worked even if Scott had been half the fighter he was.

And where did that leave Derek?

Where did it leave Stiles?

“So, so you were just keeping your uncle around like your very own personal werewolf-shaped cyanide pill?  Just waiting for Scott to get settled and then what?  Going out in a blaze of glory?  You can’t just...you just...”

Stiles was out of words.  Something in his chest had broken and gone hollow.  He had no idea how it was that he could still breathe, and he was lost so deeply in his own wordless tornado that Derek had to shake him a little to snap him out of it.

“Stiles, no.  It’s not like that.  At least not anymore.  I guess along the way I found a thing or two to make it worth sticking around.”

And that catapulted Stiles into an even deeper emotional pit

_He remembered the day he just wanted to stay home; he had a new Xbox game and the hospital stank, and it was all just so cold and so so sad.  But Grandma pulled his face up by his jaw and bent down until she was inches from his face, whispering fiercely, “You’re what keeps her going, son.”_

_He stayed after that.  Stayed with her until they had to kick him out at night, called her every morning before he had to go to school, worried that without him there, she might have given up._

“Beef jerky, for example.”

Stiles’ brain skidded to a dead stop.  “What?”

“Yeah, peppercorn beef jerky.  Definitely worth it.  And the taste of beer.”

“Seriously?  Who drinks beer for the _taste_?”

“Hey, don’t judge,” Derek said with a nudge, “Remember I’ve _seen_ the shit you eat.  There’s also swimming in a river on a hot day.  And the smell of pine right after you scratch it open.”

“Can’t say I’ve ever experienced that one.”

Derek leaned back so he was lying next to Stiles, legs crossed at the ankles.  “I’ll have to show you some day.”

There was a silence for a few minutes that didn’t need to be filled, like they were both catching their breath, leaning against each other just a little.  

Stiles was debating maybe just going back to sleep when Derek moved again, straightening the covers and pulling them up.  His voice was quiet when he settled, back firmly against Stiles’ side.  

“The point is, Stiles, I’m still here, and I’m not going anywhere.”

It should have choked him up.  Stiles thought it might have been appropriate to be sobbing at that point, but he wasn’t.  He felt weightless, like one of the little dust motes dancing in and out of the beam of sunlight cutting through the room.

He drifted off, thinking maybe it was time for him to start making up a list of his own.


	36. the proper ambush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _But he knew Stiles, and Stiles tended to work a lot better under pressure, which was a polite way of saying that Stiles would evade and run away from shit he didn’t want to deal with unless he had no other choice_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~~  
> denotes pov change
> 
> The story picks up as an AU after season 2, the Sheriff does not know about Anything.

_“My dad?”_ Stiles would deny saying it like a girl. He would deny that to his dying day. But, What The Fuck? What The ever-loving Fuck would make Derek think that texting his dad as to their location would be a good idea in any dimension, ever?

But, nope. There he was, standing outside the diner down the street from the motel, arms crossed and shifting his weight nervously. He hadn’t noticed them yet. He looked so pale. Desperate. Stiles was categorically Not Ready for this moment.

  
“Seriously, Derek?” After dead silence he added, “I look like I got run over after a week-long bender, and I’m wearing your sweat pants. I mean, you really just want to break him completely, don’t you? Is this revenge for that time he tried to get you arrested?”

  
Derek finally looked back at Stiles, with a raised eyebrow and a grin that gave no fucks. “ _He_ got me arrested, Stiles? And which time are we talking about, anyway?”

  
And it was too late anyway, his dad having spotted them and going dead still. Hugging himself and looking at Stiles like he couldn’t move, like he thought if he did move his whole world would blow apart and Stiles would disappear again. And it was Stiles running to his dad for the last few feet, it was Stiles throwing himself over his dad.

~~~

Never let it be said that Derek was not a master of the proper ambush. But he knew Stiles, and Stiles tended to work a lot better under pressure, which was a polite way of saying that Stiles would evade and run away from shit he didn’t want to deal with unless he had no other choice, and as much as Stiles was scared of this moment, Derek had lived enough to know that he needed this as much as the Sheriff did.

  
And as much as the current change in atmosphere between Derek and Stiles changed things considerably, Derek started on this trip for one reason. (Well, two reasons if you count Lydia with a loaded shotgun.) And the thing that really drove him on the search, made it worthwhile regardless of the corpses he'd waded through, was the moment when the Sheriff got his son back.

  
The Sheriff had come to Derek, drunk and pissed off one night, ready to beat the shit out of him for some answers, but then he’d taken a good look at Derek and realized that Stiles had abandoned all of them. He didn’t even ask Derek to help look, after that. It took a while and some very graphic threats from a pint-sized strawberry blond in stilettos (but then again Derek knew that Lydia didn’t bluff a threat), before Derek was the one to walk into the Sheriff’s office and ask for help or permission or god knows what.

  
Derek hadn’t been expecting the sheriff to just outright hand over the BOLO from Boise for a John Doe fitting too many details of Stiles’ description, but it was the break that set Derek on a solid trail. And the Sheriff didn’t ask any questions, not then and not as he forwarded police reports of petty larceny and car thefts that he thought might have “Stiles’ touch” to them. The man had good instincts. And never asked a damn thing.

  
But Derek could see every question the man might have had right there in his eyes as he held his son at arms length and looked him over carefully. Derek saw it in the way he looked over Stiles’ head when he pulled him in again, locking eyes with Derek, relief warring with concern in the way he wrapped his arms around Stiles’ shoulders and walked him into the diner, with Derek following a few feet away, feeling like a shadow or an old ghost.

 

~~~

 

The Sheriff was having trouble believing he was there, believing that the moment he set eyes on Stiles wasn’t just some sort of a fevered dream from his overworn brain, believing that Derek actually made good on his word, but there Stiles was, solid and warm, and wrapped around him.

  
Funny, he hadn’t really realized how tall Stiles had gotten over the past few years. There was a lot he hadn’t noticed about Stiles in the past few years, much to his regret. Seeing his boy was as painful as losing him had been, brought it all back again – Stiles’ harried message, his burning Jeep, the bloody field. There hadn’t been a day since then that he couldn’t get to sleep without drinking, and he knew that was a bad sign. Then again, what wasn’t a bad sign when you woke up every day wondering if that was the day you were going to get a call from a coroner?

  
And he could hardly breathe past the constant thought – _he’s here_ – and – _safe. He’s safe._ – But he couldn’t stop looking, couldn’t stop touching him, and the heat that was choking him up was warm and good.

Derek came through. As he stood quietly in the edge of things, the Sheriff thought he looked different. Not more confident, exactly. More comfortable, and that was an interesting change.

It stood to reason that the Sheriff, because it was who he was, started in with the analytical eye, even in this moment. But in a way it helped him distance himself from everything that was happening, which was really all too much. He’d let himself feel it late at night in his own bed, when he was alone and could have the luxury to feel what was going on. He’d probably sleep very little and cry a lot. It stood to reason.

But, really, this was some incredibly serious shit Stiles was messing around with. He didn’t understand any of it, but it involved a sizable amount of his blood and someone else’s severed limb essentially bolted to the rear fender of his burning car, and the Sheriff very badly needed to know what threats could be coming at him.

The tan, the short sleeved shirt, it showed a lot more of Stiles than his son usually showed, and he would have been awed by the tattoos if he wasn’t finding himself far more distracted by the scars. They were easy to miss and easy for Stiles to hide, had been cared for properly, so that they were only a ghost-mark of a moment, but if you were looking for them, you could see a lot.

  
Puncture wounds. Lacerations. Wounds that looked like they had been sutured – and these were old wounds, these were scars he had been collecting while under the Sheriff’s roof. Except of course for the white lines on his arms. Those almost didn’t look like scars.

He knew what they were supposed to be about. Had no idea how to feel about it.

 

~~~

 

So, the warm and happy lasted for the walk to their booth and the few minutes it took for them to place their order. They ran out of small talk in record short time. His dad cleared his throat and started in.

“I had some guys at county run a diagnostic on the data in your computer. They said you were doing grad level cross-referenced research.”

It was so like his dad to hide behind the job when he started freaking out. But it still hit him low, that they hadn’t even gotten their waffles and bacon in front them and he was already starting in. It made Stiles feel at least marginally less guilty about dragging out The Lie that explained everything.

“I told you , dad, it was research for a game. A Live-Action-”

 

~~~

 

“Role-Playing-Game. I know. I know all about them, now. The thing is, in your whole computer, in these notebooks,” The Sheriff casually held up the well-worn and cared for composition books he had found stashed in the middle of all of Stiles’ stuff. Felt a little bit bad to be fishing for a reaction from his son, but the lying had to stop. “It’s all research. Notes. Countless hours on your computer, far more than the time you spend playing real games. And even though there’s all this information, not in one single place is there a game played or mentioned that is related to all the research you’ve been doing.”

  
Stiles shrugged, looking down, jaw working. “I told you, it’s more of an improv kind of game. You do the background research so that you can–”

  
Stiles had been reaching out for the notebooks and the Sheriff caught his wrist, holding his arm still with those strange white scars showing. “Is it a game like _this_ is a game, Stiles? Are these the kinds of games you’ve been playing?”

  
Stiles’ eyes had widened and locked in on the spot where the Sheriff had hold of his wrist. He looked to be sitting dead still, but must have been knocking the table with his leg because everything on the table was rattling.

  
The reaction had happened in a flash, as soon as Stiles was touched, and the Sheriff had a sickening feeling that he knew just what he was looking at. Stiles’ quiet, dead calm voice confirmed this all too much.

  
“Dad, you need to let go of me.”

  
He’d heard that tone before, recognized the distant look from some of his deputies after they came back from deployment. It looked to him like PTSD and he should have known better than to grab his son like he just did. He let go slowly and sat back. Stiles was still staring down and breathing slow deliberate breaths, both hands held splayed wide on the table. He wiped at his nose a moment later and cussed, holding his nose closed and grabbing for the napkins.

  
“Shit. You know what? You can get my breakfast to go and if you want to talk you can come to the room. That’s where I’ll be. Nursing my bloody fucking nose.” He was staring daggers at Derek, but all it managed to get out of Derek was a raised eyebrow.

  
Stiles stalked off, talking to himself quietly the whole way to the door, from the sounds of it, far more profanity that any other words. And the Sheriff was pretty sure that the tops of Derek’s ears were bright red by the end of it as he watched Stiles’ slam out of the door. He turned to the Sheriff after that.

  
“He’s never going to tell you what’s really going on. He’s got it in is head that this is for your own protection.”

  
The Sheriff raised one skeptical eyebrow and tilted his head, but Derek kept talking before he could open his mouth. “And I’m not going to tell you, either, because it’s not my place to tell.” The Sheriff sat back again, lips tight as Derek finished, “But you have those books. You can figure the whole thing out on your own.”

  
He blew out an exasperated breath. “These things are full of folklore and mythology, that’s all. He’s gotten obsessed and delusional to the point that he’s cut himself to ribbons practicing some ritual, and you don’t seem very alarmed about any of this.”

  
Derek stood up as well, breakfast now forgotten, and dropped a spare key-card on the table. “If all they are is delusions, then it seems to me you’d want to start by proving that. And once you realize that you can’t, you might want to consider broadening your investigation.”

  
After Derek left, the Sheriff felt like a right ass, but not for making the assumptions that he had made, like the assumption that his son was delusional. Stiles spent his life devoted to an insanely cross-referenced gothic fiction. (Gothic in the classical form of the word. The Sheriff did, after all, have a graduate degree, he knew who Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker were.) Even if his son had debunked most of what the Victorians had written, to have devoted his life to monster research was damned delusional.

  
And he needed to understand why, needed to know what the hell had happened to his son for things to have gone so far afield. Derek’s comment made him feel like Stiles wasn’t the only one sharing in the delusion, which made his blood run cold, which made him think _cult_ , and it all kind of fit that sort of picture in a jagged queasy way.

  
 _But the thing was_ , and his friend in the FBI stressed to point this out, the research was so broad and so damned detailed and most importantly, the annotations Stiles had added in his own voice, the ways in which he was weaving bits of fact here and there and discrediting others from the point of view of first-hand experience implied that Stiles had been _living_ the delusion on one level or another, and there was no clear way of discerning how far down the rabbit hole he’d gone.

  
For the Sheriff to see his son in short sleeves, to see how much of this “game” Stiles had carved into his own flesh... honestly, it scared the fuck out of him. He’d been an ass for bringing it up the way he did, but he never did well with the elephants in the room, especially when he was under pressure.

  
He waved the waitress down and asked her to pack their food up, hoping the extra order of bacon would help smooth things out.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love that you are all still enjoying this, and I'm thrilled that there are new people discovering this all the time! If you like it, pass it on!  
> : )


	37. breathe magic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for extreme and excessive shortness, but this one needed to stand alone.  
> : )

Derek shouldn’t have been surprised at the right hook that came flying at him the minute he walked in the door.  He’d also have to admit that he’d earned it, but he wasn’t about to apologize for what he did.  Stiles would get over it eventually.

The punch, though – it was different.  There was _force_ behind that punch, not just Stiles’ strength.  That took him by surprise.  Like the way the table practically buzzed to life at the diner.  The table that had been bolted to the ground.  

It was a good thing no one had really been paying attention.  It was a good thing the Sheriff let go when he did, too.  There had been a subtle field of some sort forming around Stiles, the hum and buzz like a static charge building, and it still felt like Stiles hadn’t quite managed to shake it, still had a bit of a sting left in his system.

 

_He’d seen this, nascent in Stiles.  Wondered what it would take for him to figure out how to use his Will and Force like some people breathe, but he knew that Deaton had been setting him up in that direction, turning Stiles into a fucking arsenal and always convincing the kid that what he knew and what he could do was perfectly commonplace._

_But Deaton was no fool and even if he hadn’t known all the details, he saw in Scott a freshly turned young man standing on contested ground, and in the Hales he saw instability.  He’d said this to Derek once, and Derek had thanked him for his perceptiveness.  This was a few days after Deaton had taught Stiles not only how to use aconite as a replacement for wolfsbane, but also taught him how to alter their essential oils for different kinds of moderated effects._

_Taught Stiles not only how to kill werewolves and other monsters with minimal effort, but also how to paralyze them and perform surgery on them if he was of a mind to do so.  He could drop them with a blow gun._

_And Stiles would just follow the man all the way down the garden path, thinking all of this was normal.  Thinking that the way he’d dropped those werewolves in Idaho was par for the course, most likely completely ignorant of the legend he’d already become up and down the West Coast._

_If there was one person who should be able to breathe magic, it should be Stiles._

 

It _was_ Stiles, and he was crackling with energy that Derek was desperate to taste.  It didn’t help that Stiles’ parting shot at the diner had been that he intended on fucking the Alpha right out of Derek and that he wasn’t going to stop until Derek was crying like a little girl.  Derek had not expected it to turn him on quite as much as it did.

He managed to avoid a couple blows and slid in right under Stiles’ guard, wrapping a hand behind his head and pulling him into a brutal kiss.  When they came up for air Stiles punched Derek one more time for good measure, but he’d already calmed down enough to rein in the lightning.  Derek reeled Stiles back in close and just held him, hid Stiles’ face in his neck and felt tears as Stiles hugged him back desperately tight.

“My dad, Derek.  I could have killed my own _dad._   I was holding a loaded gun up to his face and he didn’t even know–”  Stiles’ voice was a broken whisper.

“That’s not the part that matters here, Stiles.  The part that matters was that you blinked.  It doesn’t matter how close you get.  It matters that you stop yourself.”  All the times he’d heard it, Derek never thought he’d be the one saying it.

Stiles took a deep breath and loosened up, stepping back and flopping down in a chair.  “But seriously, Derek?  You couldn’t have waited?”

Derek shrugged, sitting on the corner of the bed.  “I have no idea what’s coming after us next.  I can’t take it for granted that any of us will be around tomorrow.  When it gets like that the first thing you have to do is bring your pack together.  Your dad _is_ your pack.  The two of you are going to have to figure out how to deal with each other.  Or do you seriously _not_ feel like there’s a storm coming?”

Stiles leaned his head back and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, groaning his response.  “Okay, okay.  You’re right.  Doesn’t make you any less of an asshole.”

“Are you gonna make me cry about that, too?”

Stiles’ smile and short glance were equal parts mischief and mayhem and it grabbed Derek by the balls.  Nothing new with that, just that this time he could smile back.  It also made perfect sense that the extra keycard scraped in the lock just at that very moment.

Stiles answered softly, because he knew Derek could hear him perfectly well.  “You have no idea what kind of devastation you have waiting for you, Derek.  I might even make you wear a skirt.”

Derek’s loud snort was hidden by the door squeaking open and the Sheriff walking in, food first.


	38. keep it civil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The excess bacon grease hadn’t even congealed on the styrofoam before Derek wiped his hands and face on a napkin and dropped it on the table, bolting with some lame excuse about errands or exercise or some shit, and even though he was kind of glad to have his dad to himself, Stiles was going to call Derek chickenshit from that day forth any damn time he felt like it._

Even Stiles was not depraved enough to continue entertaining thoughts of reducing Derek to a sobbing mess after his dad walked in the room.

They managed to keep it civil until the food was eaten, and that was really all Stiles had wanted at that moment.  Food before the emo breakdown or whatever the fuck else he was going to break out with, Stiles didn’t know anymore, he had pretty much broken his emotional barometer and would go as far as saying he’d think he was pregnant if it wasn’t for, you know, the whole having-a-dick thing.

He was kicking himself for not thinking to have the ‘What do you want to tell him about us?’ conversation with Derek, but both his dad and Derek were masters of feigning neutrality, so maybe everyone decided it was best to sidestep that neutron bomb, at least for the time being.

The excess bacon grease hadn’t even congealed on the styrofoam before Derek wiped his hands and face on a napkin and dropped it on the table, bolting with some lame excuse about errands or exercise or some shit, and even though he was kind of glad to have his dad to himself, Stiles was going to call Derek chickenshit from that day forth any damn time he felt like it. 

His dad took a deep breath, leaned forward and failed to start a sentence about three times before Stiles threw his head back with a whine.  

“Dad, come on, really, this is worse than the sex-talk.  The _second_ sex talk.  The one after  I told you I liked guys, too.  You remember that, don’t you?  Is there any way we can take this in another direction?  Like, more words and less hand gestures?”

The Sheriff blew air out of his cheeks and clapped his hands together.  “It’s just, this whole werewolf thing, all this stuff about magic and spells – you know they aren’t real, don’t you?”

Stiles shook his head.  “If you’re asking me whether I know the difference between what’s real and what isn’t, dad, I think I’m relatively clear on the concept.  But I don’t want to talk about that other stuff right now.”

His dad blew out an exasperated breath.  “Well, what _else_ is there to talk about, Stiles?  Catch any games at a homeless shelter?  Read any good books lately?”

“Dammit, dad...”  Stiles didn’t have a clue where he wanted to go with that.

“Derek says you’re never going to tell me anything.  For my own safety.”

And nothing to say about that, either.  Mostly because it was the unvarnished, most simple truth, and it was Bishop all over again, people pissed off at Stiles’ effort to protect them.  But this was his dad, and he didn’t have to have all the answers with his dad.   

“I’m scared, dad.  Everyone that gets wrapped up in this shit gets hurt.  And I just... I can’t...”

“Stiles, you’re an idiot.”

Okay, so yeah, that was his dad, too.  And he wished he could take it with a grain of salt or hear the affection in it, but it stung more than it used to.

“Dad, really?  Could we not?”

The Sheriff tilted his head, eyes narrowed.  “You should know better than that, Stiles.  And I’m not even going to talk about how _I’m_ the one who’s supposed to be doing the protecting. You don’t keep a capable, strong person safe by keeping them in the dark.  You keep them informed.  Then everyone stays safe.”

Stiles shook his head.  “Dad, it’s not that simple.”

And it looked like the Sheriff was working up a head of steam.  “No?  So why don’t you _enlighten_ me?”

Great.  There was the pitbull tone.  

The thing about pitbulls wasn’t their aggressiveness so much as their bone-crushing jaws and the tendency to hold on to anything they got between their teeth.

There were reasons why he’d kept his dad in the dark.  He was just a little too pissed off to give two fucks about it anymore, and after all he’d been through, lying just seemed like a waste of time and effort.

“It’s all real, dad.”

And there must have been a certain finality to his voice , because his dad just stopped.

So he kept talking.  “The books.  All that magic stuff.  The werewolves, all those other weird monsters I wrote about.  Hunters.  That’s real, too.”  He let that sink in for a beat or two, then kept going, “I mean, think about it, dad.  Any weird animal attacks lately?  Any strange murderous sprees through your entire department in the past few years?”

His dad was looking down, kind of lost in is own world.  Stiles waited until he raised his head.  “And don’t ask me to prove it.  I’m not allowed to show off because I always end up breaking something.  Maybe when Derek comes out of whatever bolt-hole he’s found, you can ask him to show you.”  Because Derek did so very much love to play show-and-tell.  Stiles had to make sure he was there for that bit of payback.

Stiles leaned back in his seat and suddenly felt like everything just gotten a hundred times easier.  Even if his dad had no clue what he was talking about, he’d catch on fast.  He was a quick learner.  And he was right.  Stiles _was_ being an idiot.  He could hardly even keep himself alive, let alone protect his dad anymore.  

Besides, let’s face it.  These days, he was like the plague.  The bottom line was that if anyone spent any time around Stiles, they were going to end up elbow-deep in freaky shit no matter what Stiles felt on the matter.

 

~~~

 

All real.

All real?  What the hell was his boy talking about?

Of course, yes, there were a lot of odd things going on in Beacon Hills.  Was that how he started with this obsessional delusion, by rifling through his files?  

And Derek, having proof, did that make him the ring leader?  But it wasn’t as though Stiles was desperate to prove his credibility, and that usually pointed to someone who felt they had nothing to prove.  

Why did he, even for one second, entertain the thought that he would ever get a clear answer out of his son?

No harm in asking questions, at any rate.  “So, Derek?”

Stiles startled momentarily and blushed something fierce.  “What?  Derek?  Oh! Oh, yeah, Derek’s a werewolf.”

And that was absolutely not why Stiles was blushing.  But his son was an adult, albeit barely, and given that the Sheriff had no control over Stile’s relationship choices, he was going to try real hard not to think too much about it.  He was going to get to know Derek a little before he made up his mind whether or not he wanted to gut the man.

He kept asking questions.  By the fourth, Stiles had launched into a pitched diatribe about why pixies were actually the worst enemy (they swarm and they had rows and rows of sharp little teeth, like land piranha).

The Sheriff knew that it had probably not been that long, but his head was spinning by the time Derek rushed in the door.  Stiles stilled as soon as Derek walked in, giving him his undivided attention.

“We have to go.”

Stiles was already standing before the sentence was finished, walking around with methodical precision, picking up the scant items that hadn’t already been packed while Derek checked the bathroom.  

“Are they kicking us out? Did we make too much noise last–”  Stiles blushed yet again, glancing quickly at the Sheriff before exchanging glares with Derek.

“No, Stiles.  We have unwelcome company.”

Stiles straightened up a little, looking at Derek speculatively.  “Seriously?  And you don’t have to come up with a code, by the way.  My dad knows.”

Derek glanced at the Sheriff with a small grin.  “Really?  You told him?”

Stiles snorted.  “Yeah.  You knew I would if you told him I wouldn’t, didn’t you?”

He kept grinning as he looked at Stiles, “I knew it wouldn’t hurt.”

Not that he’d admit it, but it was possible that things were looking just a little less dire for Derek as far as the Sheriff was concerned.  But he wasn’t going to dwell on that, either.  “What kind of company are you talking about?”

Derek glanced over as he slung his bag on his shoulder, leading them out.  “Local pack.  They’ve sent out trackers, looking for someone that matches Stiles’ description.”

Stiles snorted as he sauntered toward the car,  “What, did you forget to call off the bounty?”

Derek froze in his tracks.  “What bounty?”

Stiles dropped his mouth open.  “ _What bounty?_ Twenty-six thousand dollars for me if I was returned to the Hales intact?”

Derek was shaking his head even harder, and everybody started walking with just a little more purpose.  “I didn’t put out a bounty, Stiles.  Where did you hear this?”

“Out in Boise, the family pack out there, been wondering how come you never call?  Wait.  Did you even know about them?”

Derek’s lips were tight as he shook his head again, and Stiles finished his thought.  “Uh-huh.  Peter.  That explains it.”

The Sheriff knew he was light years behind this conversation but tried to keep up.  “Peter?  Peter Hale, your uncle, the one who escaped from the nursing home?”

Stiles’ mouth was tight as he nodded.  “Yeah.  The fucker who’s arm I immolated.  And are you going to keep telling me he didn’t deserve it?”  

He aimed the last of it at Derek, and Derek looked as though he’d heard that argument far too many times.  But although the Sheriff’s brain was skidding around in near dark, there were a couple details that weren’t exactly easy for him to ignore.

“That arm on your jeep, then.  That was Peter’s?  You shackled a man to your car and cut his arm off, son?”  

They had been running off the assumption that Stiles had used one of his many odd medical online networks and aliases to get ahold of a cadaver’s arm.  Even though it was farfetched, everyone agreed that it made far more sense than the idea that Stiles might have performed a live amputation.  He was glad he was parked blocks away.  He figured he could get out of view before he puked.

Stiles glanced over briefly.  “Actually, I _shot_ his arm off.”  He tried again after a breath.  “Peter is dangerous, dad.  He was planning on killing everyone, and that was the only way I could think of to stop him.”

The Sheriff was completely at a loss.  He shook his head, feeling numb, and said something about getting his car.  Stiles nodded, head down and jaw tight like it would get even when he’d been a little boy and was trying to hold back tears.  

He’d been looking for answers, and it looked like he was going to be getting them.  He had never even considered that the answers he would get could break him.


	39. just ready

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“There is no ‘and then’ there is no ‘ever after’ of any sort. There is only running and more running.”  
>  Derek raised an eyebrow. “This is what you got out of a dirt lot covered in blood?”_

Derek looked over at Stiles after they got in the rental.  He was zen-calm, watching his dad’s retreating form.  He’d never seen Stiles sit so still.  But when he glanced over at Derek his eyes were glinting, hard awake and taking in all of his surroundings at once.  No elevated heart rate, no nerves, just ready to fight.  The sight brought Derek’s fangs out for a second or two before he finally calmed with  shudder.

“So.  Flagstaff?”  Stiles’ voice even sounded different.  Clipped tight. 

Kid had grown up and the last few months had grown him hard indeed.  Derek was looking forward to fighting with Stiles at his side again.  They made a good team.  “Got pulled aside on the street by a kid from the local pack.  He just figured me for a random omega passing through.  He passed the message that they were looking for a warlock in the area fitting your description.”

Stiles laughed as quiet as paper.  “Warlock?  That’s kind of badass. Can’t you just tell them to fuck off?”

That was the problem.  Derek didn’t know any of these people, Peter had all the contacts,  there really wasn’t time to get to know any of his neighbors while trying to keep a bunch of teenagers from killing themselves and each other.   And the fucking number, twenty-six thousand dollars.  That was the amount sitting in one of a number of bank accounts in Peter’s name which he refused to touch.  Settlement money.  That particular one was for his daughter.

Derek just shook his head.  “But we can get the fuck out of here.”

“Think it’s a coincidence they know I’m here?”

Derek shook his head emphatically this time.  Peter, again.

Stiles nodded tightly.  “We need to leave this car.  We can all go in my dad’s car.  Or I can boost–”

“Stiles.”  

Stiles dropped his head back on to the head rest, tracking everything around him.

“Odd, though.”  Derek added, “When he told me he was done, he meant it.”

“I bet he did,” Stiles answered.  “I bet he’s done with you.  You were one of the victims, it just took him a while to figure it out.  Me, on the other hand?  I shot his arm off.  He’s not done with me, not by a long shot.  Hell, _I_ wouldn’t be done with me if I shot my arm off, which... well... Anyway,  I intend to Bart Simpson my way out of this one, staying one skateboard length away from disaster at all times and running like hell.”

“And then?”

“And then, what?” Stiles laughed a little, “There is no ‘and then’ there is no ‘ever after’ of any sort.  There is only running and more running.”

Derek raised an eyebrow.  “ _This_ is what you got out of a dirt lot covered in blood?”

Stiles grinned a little at that.  “To be honest, I’ve outspanned the spiral by a lifetime or two.  I departed from the text a long time ago.  I certainly didn’t see you coming.  _Or_ my dad, you chickenshit bastard.”

Derek felt his own grin reach shit-eating proportions.  “So this ‘run and just keep running’ plan is all yours then, is it?”

Stiles was still grinning, scanning the roads around them.  “Sure.  Maybe work a little fucking in there from time to time, but it seems like as good a starting point as any.”

Derek parked next to the Sheriff’s car.  He turned to Stiles after he stopped the engine.  “All right.  I can’t seem to think of a plan any better than yours, so I’m down with Plan Run Away.”

Stiles nodded as they climbed out.  “It’s a good plan.  It dovetails nicely with one of my favorite plans, which is Hide in a Hole and Poke Them With a Sharp Stick if They Get Too Close.”  Derek walked ahead shaking his head a little, finding it hard not to smile like a loon.

He’d managed to sober up before the Sheriff spotted them and nodded when he saw their luggage.  “Good.  I was going to suggest we all take my car.”

Derek wasn’t sure exactly how it happened, but he ended up in the passenger’s seat while Stiles sprawled out over the entire back seat.  He had a feeling there was going to be a lot of that in the near  future.  Any opportunity Stiles got to put Derek between him and his dad would not be wasted.

The Sheriff looked oddly uncomfortable, and Derek was a little taken aback by it, but the man finally cleared his throat and braved ahead.  “So, Stiles said you can prove that everything he wrote about is real?”

Derek shot a cold glance in Stiles’ direction, and Stiles shrugged his shoulders, happy as a clam.  “What?  You know Allison banned me from doing show-and-tell...”

Because Stiles was a right bastard and knew exactly how much Derek hated this kind of shit.  He could practically hear his own teeth grinding as he answered.  “Sir, I don’t think this is the kind of thing we should be doing while you’re driving, and I really think you need to be driving right now.”

The Sheriff wasn’t exactly impressed and Stiles blew a raspberry from the back seat, but he pulled out into traffic anyway and headed out onto the highway.  They hadn’t travelled more than ten minutes when Stiles had settled into the back seat and looked to be out cold, but Derek could see his mouth almost forming words, see the flicker of eyes that weren’t quite closed, that were still tracking but looked to be thinking hard.  

Thinking _hard_ about something, and Derek had learned to look for the signs in Stiles, learned to be wary of the smell of fresh blood because it wouldn’t be long before Stiles was bleeding discretely and some part of the ambient was going to be trying to disintegrate at a molecular level.

There was something wrong with that, Derek knew there was.  He hoped maybe it was a matter of Stiles growing into his power, that the bleeding would stop if he got some rest, but he had the sick feeling that something was broken in Stiles and the thing he hated the most about his sick feelings was the fact that they tended to be right.

He reached out and put his hand on Stiles’ knee, squeezing it a second until Stiles opened his eyes and gasped like he’d been underwater.

“Yeah.  Something’s coming.  We’re inside their perimeter, and I’m not sure we’ll be able to get through in the car.”

The Sheriff shot a quick glance at Derek  “How did they get so close?  You think someone told them Stiles was here?”

Derek admired how quick the Sheriff was.  Always sharp.  Perceptive, like his son.   “Peter.  Peter would have told them.  Peter is after Stiles, sir.”  And for that matter, “Stiles shot Peter to stop Peter from killing me.”  He took a short breath, “Yes, Stiles did shoot Peter’s arm off.  But Peter is a werewolf, sir, and although Peter can’t regrow his arm, Stiles knew for a fact that it wouldn’t kill him.”

Derek knew he was the only one to hear the empty little laugh in the back seat. “Should’ve just pumped ten shells into his fucking brain”  

He was a little surprised to be finding himself agreeing with Stiles.  When his uncle was just after him, that was one thing.  But now that he’d turned his wrath on Stiles, Derek was finding fewer and fewer reasons why Peter should keep living, given all the good people that had died because he started stirring up shit.  

Not that any of those details really mattered.  The one  thing that mattered was that, uncontrolled rage or not, the fucker killed his sister and Derek was finding himself less and less inclined to forgive him for it.  

He missed his sister.  Sometimes he thought he missed her more with each passing day, like he was bleeding out slowly from the inside, like that hole in his chest was only just going to keep on getting bigger, but then he’d picture her smacking him on the back of the head, telling him to stop being such a pussy.

 

_His sister had known he’d been sneaking around with Kate.  After it happened, after the fire and all the deaths, it didn’t taker her long to put it together, but she would never let Derek talk about it, would veer him off or change the subject or just  flat out Alpha-stare him and tell him to shut the fuck up, that none of it was his fault and that he was an idiot for thinking that it was._

 

“What kinds of weapons will they be carrying?”  The Sheriff’s voice cut through Derek’s haze.  It was a good thing someone was thinking clearly.  

Stiles leaned forward at the question, hand on his father’s shoulder.  “Yeah, they don’t usually use guns.  They’ll use cars as rams and hit people with fists like clubs.  No, more like maces.  Heavily, heavily armed and highly inclined to cause blunt force trauma.”  It was really really odd to hear Stiles speaking so clinically about his kind, almost as if Derek hardly remembered that Stiles wasn’t one of his.

Stiles kept talking. “If they found out you were a Sheriff, they honestly wouldn’t give two fucks either way.  They’re incredibly strong and their smell and hearing is highly sensitive.  You can use that against them, though.  I know you don’t want to hear this, dad, but you have to think _‘dog’.”_

The Sheriff gave a small sniff.  “There was this group of gypsies, came through town about twenty years ago, did something similar a couple times – using the cars like rams.  They didn’t stay long.  We didn’t even have the time to process the evidence before they hightailed it out.” He gave Derek a meaningful look.  “We heard rumors they’d run afoul of the Hales.  And everybody knew, the Hales took care of their own.”

Derek nodded, ignoring the lump in his throat.  “That they did, sir.”

The Sheriff glanced at him again for a second and nodded.  “You’ve been looking out for my son this whole time, haven’t you?  Looking out for him and all those kids?”

He nodded again, “Trying too.”

Stiles smacked Derek’s shoulder a little harder than was strictly necessary.  “Oh my god.  Could we please _not_ start getting all emo right the fuck now?  Besides, fucker, I’ve been saving your shaggy ass since the day after I met you.”  He turned to his father, “It’s called a _pack_ for a reason, dad.  We all looked out for each other.”

And Derek might have been wrong, but it was one of those details he’d always noticed about Stiles.  He thought maybe that was the first time he heard Stiles refer to himself as being in a pack with Derek.  

Somewhere in the background, he could almost hear his sister calling him a fifteen year-old girl.  


	40. life in the delusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He was glad he didn’t make it a habit to cross state lines carrying a loaded weapon, not because they’re ‘virtually useless against werewolves without the right bullets’, but because he might have been tempted to kill one of their attackers just to prove to his son, once and for all, exactly how far from reality he’d veered._

The Sheriff had been through enough and seen enough to know that, deluded or not, whatever was coming down the pike was likely dangerous.  It was still hard not to yell at his son to shut up as he went into detail regarding the most effective ways to fight and kill imaginary creatures, but he clamped his jaw shut and listened.

He was glad he didn’t make it a habit to cross state lines carrying a loaded weapon, not because they’re ‘virtually useless against werewolves without the right bullets’, but because he might have been tempted to kill one of their attackers just to prove to his son, once and for all, exactly how far from reality he’d veered.  And the last thing he ever wanted to do was take a life.  As an officer of the law, he strove foremost to uphold the sanctity of life, bad guys included.

It had yet to be determined if his son had become one of the bad guys with the games he had been playing.  He had certainly been breaking all sorts of laws with wild abandon recently.  It poured cold into his veins when Stiles handed him a bowie knife in its leather sheaf with a green-stained hilt.

“Be really careful with this thing, dad.  The blade is coated with a toxin that can kill a grown man in about ten seconds, so keep it holstered unless you absolutely need it, and keep the sharp bits away from yourself at all times.”

He took it and dropped it on the seat next to him, keeping his eyes on the road and saying nothing.  Stiles dropped back into his seat but came up again a second later.

“Look, I know you don’t believe this and I swear to you I would have done something to prove it before this moment if I had known there were a bunch of assholes closing in on us, but... just, please.  Be careful.  Don’t assume you know what’s going on just because I’m telling you things that sound ridiculous.  And I’m really serious about that knife, dad.  If you kill yourself with it I don’t know what I’ll do.”

The Sheriff picked it up and held it back over his shoulder.  “You want it back?  Because I do know how to handle toxic materials, Stiles, but if this is too much for you, I’m sure a regular old knife will suit me just fine.”

Stiles huffed out a frustrated breath.  “No, see, that’s the problem.  A regular old knife is about as effective as a wiffle ball bat!  Have you not been listening to a word–”

Stiles cussed and Derek let out a shout of alarm at about the same time, just a few seconds before _something_ came running straight at them.  Whatever it was was about the size of a mountain lion and ran like a wolverine, but damned fast.  He’d hardly gotten his foot on the break pedal before it had leapt on to the hood and then the roof of the car.

He was glad he had to pay attention to keep them from crashing, because he probably would have shit his pants at the sight of a hole being torn into the car roof by a claw-like hand that looked far too animal to be human, but not like any animal he’d ever seen. While Derek shielded the Sheriff, he could see Stiles latch on to the wrist and pull down hard before letting go with a shove that sent the thing rolling off the back of the car with a series of loud thumps.

The Sheriff watched it in the rear-view as it rolled across the tarmac and then skidded to a stop, running off into the bushes on the side of the road as though it hadn’t just sustained trauma of the sort that should have killed it.

So.

Maybe it was a good thing Stiles had given him the knife.

Maybe he was the one who had spent his life in the delusion that monsters weren’t real, because that thing, whatever it was, was like nothing he’d ever known.  And to kill all last doubts he might have had, Derek opened the door and jumped out of the moving car saying something about cutting the monster off before it looped back around.  What the Sheriff saw running off was definitely not Derek.  At least, not the Derek he knew.

He didn’t bother to pull over, just stopped the car but didn’t kill the engine, waiting for the next sign of trouble.  He spotted movement coming off his left flank and didn’t hesitate before throwing the car in reverse and running it down, gunning the engine so hard that he almost lost control.

The beast he hit made a satisfying thud and crack as its body and then its head made hard contact with the trunk.  Stiles leapt out, stabbing the thing in the throat before it had a chance to shake the stun of the impact.  That time, the Sheriff got to get a good hard look at the thing as it died and melted back into a human form.  She had been a teenaged girl, just barely a woman.

He told himself that he’d puke over that later as Stiles jumped back in and told his dad to drive just as an eerie howl cut through the air and was followed up by more, further off but no doubt closing in fast.  Derek came out of the bushes not far ahead and they barely stopped as Stiles threw open the door and he jumped in.

If there was one thing years on the force had taught him, it was how to drive, and the Sheriff put every ounce of his training into use, swerving and ramming his way past a few more werewolves without slowing until finally, according to Stiles, they had given up the chase.

They drove in silence for a while, the wind whistling through the roof too loudly for conversation.  The Sheriff was kind of glad of that, kind of glad that he couldn’t voice all the panicked questions that were cropping up as his adrenaline wore off, but was still more than happy to ditch the car a few blocks away from the first car rental dealership they passed.  

He had no idea how he planned on getting the car back home.  It wasn’t as though he loved the thing, but he lived on the salary of a public servant, and he couldn’t just run out and buy a new one just because he’d had a close encounter with supernatural creatures.  

Stiles stayed with the old car and the Sheriff spent the walk to the dealership trying to calculate how he was going to budget in the cost of the rental.  Derek surprised him by pulling out his own credit card when it came time to pay.

“No, Derek,” he balked, “This is–”

“My fault entirely, sir.  And I have little else to spend it on, anyway.”

He let it go.  Didn’t even make a comment about how he hoped this wasn’t Derek’s way to get in his good graces.  He had watched them in the rear-view, saw the way Stiles had checked Derek over when he’d jumped into the back seat, saw the way they sat, resting against each other in a manner that was entirely unconscious on both their parts.  Whatever they had going on was deep, possibly deeper than those two even realized.

The Sheriff paused when they climbed into the tinted-window black sedan that the dealer had insisted was the only available vehicle.  It was like the quiet and dark of the car offered him extra cover.

“So.  This is real then.”

Derek just nodded.

“And how does my son fit into all of this?”

Derek shrugged.  “Scott was turned, sir.  Stiles got caught up in it in order to help keep him safe.”  He turned to the Sheriff after a moment, his eyes more honest than he was used to seeing in the young man.  “He’s... very powerful, sir.  Almost too powerful for his own good.”

The Sheriff snorted as he turned the engine over, “Since when has Stiles ever been anything other than too much for his own good?”

Derek nodded, “I see your point, sir.”

They were nearing the old car, Stiles leaned up against the back with arms crossed and it struck the Sheriff how very much like an adult he looked.  He realized that it was probably time he reassessed every assumption he’d been carrying about his son.

Derek cleared his throat before they stopped.  “I’m doing... I’m trying, sir, to make sure that he’s okay.”  

The genuine fear and humility in Derek’s voice was enough to make the Sheriff’s heart go out to him.  “I know you are.  I can only guess how much of that involves protecting Stiles from himself.”

It pulled a little chuckle and nod out of Derek, and the Sheriff put a hand on his arm as he was about to climb out.  “You’re not alone in all of this, son, especially not now.  I hope you remember that, and call me when you need help.”

They both turned away and stepped out in unison, pretending not to see the mist in one another’s eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's not over yet, but we are moving in that direction...


	41. playing bunny

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _They hadn’t made it home. They’d hardly made it past the Mojave before his dad threw in the towel and booked them rooms in a halfway decent roadside hotel, not even blinking when he asked for a single for himself and a king-size for them_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for coitus interruptus.  
> (I can't decide if that's a spoiler or a more important warning than one for coitus is)

“Stiles.  _Stiles!_ ” And oh, no, he was going to pretend he didn’t hear the tone in that whisper.  Stiles had a wolf to defile, and there was no way in hell said wolf was going to stop that.  Except, of course for the monster strong hands on his hips, pushing him away.  “ _Stiles, are you nuts?_ Your dad is _right next door._ ”

(They hadn’t made it home.  They’d hardly made it past the Mojave before his dad threw in the towel and booked them rooms in a halfway decent roadside hotel, not even blinking when he asked for a single for himself and a king-size for them.)  

Stiles smiled his patented devil-may-care smile, the one he _knew_ got under Derek’s skin.  He did keep his voice down because, hello, his dad was right next door.  He whispered dry and breathy, right into Derek’s ear.  “What, is the powerful Alpha stealth-hunter-in-the-night _scared_?”

Derek chuckled, but it sounded more like a pant, “Of your dad?  Yeah.  Definitely.”  He ended it with a small groan, “Even if he isn’t armed.  _Shit_ , Stiles.”

“Mhmmm,” Stiles hummed, mouth busy on his neck, on the tender spot behind his ear.  Even if he’d never done it before, he knew how sensitive that spot was, he’d seen the way Derek would flinch when an errant blade of grass or collar would flit against it.

He knew a lot of Derek’s sweet spots.  Was very much looking forward to finding out the rest. 

He leaned up to Derek’s ear again as he palmed his jeans, “Then I guess you better keep it quiet.”  

Derek was already getting hot, bulge growing under Stiles’ hand.  He tipped his head back against the wall and didn’t try to stop Stiles again.  Stiles thought maybe he even heard the man whimper, but he’d deny it if pressed.  For the sake of Derek’s dignity, at any rate.

Stiles slid down to his knees and Derek looked down, a look of surprise on his face like he hadn’t even noticed Stiles had already undone his belt and zipper.  His eyes were wide and already half gone, hissing out a barely audible _‘fuck’_ as Stiles pulled him out and gripped the base of his cock hard, going to town on the head like it was an ice cream cone, messy as hell, spit all over his chin and cheeks, making small slick and filthy sounds.

Derek could hardly breathe, couldn’t pull his eyes off Stiles, caught between the restrictive grip and the suck and lick and he just looked _lost_ , hands against the wall, claws digging into the plaster.  

Until he didn’t.  Until his eyes cleared with an almost audible click and he pulled Stiles off of him, pulled him up and shoved him against the wall with a hand on his mouth before Stiles could say a thing.  Stiles was about to get _pissed_  when Derek raised a finger and Stiles heard something too.

A muffled thump and a quiet grunt came from the opposite end of the room, from the wall their room shared with his dad’s, from _his dad’s room_.  Stiles felt his eyes go as wide as saucers, started struggling against Derek’s grip, but Derek stilled him with another look, tapping his ear to sign that they could be heard.  And that could only mean one thing, could only mean werewolves and Stiles was thinking _what the fuck?_ until, a second later, Derek’s phone rang.

Fucking Peter, and how could they have been so stupid as not to have realized that Peter had probably been tracking them all along with the GPS on Derek’s phone?  Stiles could see the realization hit Derek at the second ring.  

He flicked it on, and demanded, “Talk.” with a voice so clear and sharp a person would think he hadn’t been getting his brain sucked out of his dick mere seconds ago.

Stiles leaned in while Derek tilted the phone so Stiles could hear as well.  “No need to make this difficult.  We just want the boy.  So why don’t you come on over nice and easy and nobody has to get hurt.”

Stiles was pushing against the brick wall that was Derek’s arm as hard as possible before Derek had had enough and slammed him back against the wall again.  That was about all Stiles could take.  “Derek, fuck!  Let go! That’s my–”

Derek put his hand against Stiles’ mouth again and growled, louder than he needed to.  “Looks like your time’s up, Bunny.”

That quieted him down, finally got him thinking straight.  It was Stiles’ own code, it meant show up harmless, wait for them to drop their guard, to practically forget he was even there while Derek played big bad wolf and as soon as he had the opening, kill them.  Effectively, in ways and with tools werewolves couldn’t even handle without injury.  

It was easier than anyone would guess, werewolves being so certain of their superb senses that they wouldn’t doubt that the adrenaline and accelerated heart beat was fear-based, wouldn’t even stop and wonder why he didn’t quite stink of fear the way he should.  They never even saw it coming, most times, and even when they did it was a day late and a dollar short.

He usually loved playing bunny.  Except, this time it was his dad and this time Stiles was sure he already stank of full-blown panic.  It was only Derek’s game face that kept him from falling apart.  That look only meant one thing.  Show time.

“What the fuck?” He shouted, kicking a chair to hide the sound of him dumping out his pack.  “Seriously, Derek, he’s just an old man–”

“And a lot more useful to me than a kid with a talented mouth and a bounty on his head.  How long did you think you’d last, anyway?”  

Derek was pacing, doing his best to make it sound like two people were dancing around each other while Stiles hid weapons on himself, standing by the end Derek was done. But he was supposed to be some badass warlock, right?  So he figured that meant no one expected him to come in easy, regardless of the voice on the phone.  

“Yeah, that is _so_ not going to happen.”  he said, and started a chant that sounded sort of latin and witchy and meant absolutely nothing while he and Derek had a charades argument involving Stiles insisting that Derek punch him and Derek not being behind that plan.  Stiles was pretty sure he won when he started chanting loudly and Derek finally landed a solid fist in his gut, making Stiles drop to the floor with completely not faked gasp and groan.  Derek was _never_ good at pulling his punches, but Stiles couldn’t help wondering if maybe Derek was pissed enough about it that he added just a little more sting than usual.

Derek reached for Stiles and Stiles kicked out, crawling away from him and trying not to laugh maniacally while they fake wrestled for a couple seconds before Derek managed to pull his belt off and bind Stiles’ hands with it.  For anyone who knew much about about subduing a prisoner, it was about the least effective thing one could do, but not something werewolves tended to think about since it was just as easy to rip someone’s arms off as it was to tie them up.

Stiles pulled his hands into fists and flexed so that it would look much tighter than it was, glaring as Derek stuffed a (thankfully clean) sock into his mouth, looking just a little too amused for Stiles’ liking.  He gripped Stiles arm and pulled him up, Stiles making muffled sound of protest while Derek hugged him and whispered almost soundlessly “Six of them.  Four in the room, two outside.”

Stiles nodded and Derek dragged him outside.  The door to the next room was already open and Derek shoved Stiles in first, looking for all the world like he was using Stiles like a shield.  He didn’t loosen his grip once they got in and it was a good thing, because the first thing Stiles saw was his dad, out cold in a hotel chair, head thrown back, blood dripping on to the floor slowly from a hidden wound.

Derek’s voice, cold as hell and mad enough to inspire fear in anyone, cut through the spinning haze Stiles’ world had become.  “Thought you said no one gets hurt.”

The grizzled man sitting on the bed, legs stretched out in front of him and ankles crossed, answered casually. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing a quick trip to the ER can’t fix.  After all, we needed to keep you busy after we left here.”  His not-giving-two-fucks attitude clearly marked him as the Alpha.

Derek shifted forward a step, and everyone seemed just that much more alert.  “That wasn’t the deal.  Why should I give you this one if you’re just going to hurt him, too?”

The man grinned, sitting up.  “Look at you, getting all sweet on your humans.  No wonder your pack disowned you.”

Stiles felt Derek’s claws dig into his arm and the rest of the conversation drifted away from him, like it was going on in another room, overshadowed by the tickle of blood seeping down his arm and the heat radiating from the five little puncture wounds, spreading warm and loose through his whole body, his heart beating in time to the beat of a drum he was surprised no one else could hear.  He didn’t smile, although he wanted to, letting his mind drift over his present company, cataloguing their already obvious weaknesses.  The Alpha would definitely be the first to go.

He let them take him outside, playing scared, playing bunny, all half-frozen and stumbling, knocking down the guy who was holding him and dropping a confusion spell behind him as he ran.  No one needed to hear the spell for it to work, it only mattered that he could feel it in his mouth and on is mind, unspooling before him.  

It was a spell he’d only just figured out.  He kept having dreams about the day the Drow took him down, until he could replay the whole event in slow motion, until he somehow knew how the Drow had bent light and shadow to his will, until he knew how he could do the same.

(It made no sense, he shouldn’t have been able to work magic as though he were Fae, but if this was what he got as a payoff to those medallions in his chest becoming muddied and charred remnants of what they had been, then he would take it.  He would take it and run with it, just like he was doing in that moment, buying himself enough time to get away from the prospect of being shoved into the trunk of a car and driven off, buying himself enough time to choose the battlefield instead.)

He slipped his hands out of the belt easily, dropped that and the sock where they could find it when they finally stopped chasing their tails.  He could hear their confused shouts fading in the background, listened for the moment when one of them finally came to their senses and called the chase, added a burst of speed and vaulted over the wall behind the hotel with ease, running fast and easy into the bracken.

The fuckers didn’t know it, but they didn’t stand a chance.


	42. ever outward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It would have been a greater mercy to shove wolfsbane down their throats. That was kind of the point._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the update was for an unbelievably annoying minor typo - no need to re-read

Stiles’ world contracted down and expanded ever outward in equal measure.  He could feel the entire landscape around him, could feel exactly where it was that he needed to go, while at the same time the only thing that existed was the breath and step of the wolves closing in behind him.

He reached the edge of a dry wash just in time, leapt down into it, tucked into a roll and pulled the bowie knife out of his ankle strap in one seamless move, coming up just as the Alpha closed in and leapt, tracing a perfect arc into Stiles’ back that Stiles cut short with a backthrust of his fisted knife, landing the poisoned blade straight into the Alpha’s heart.

The others screamed and howled, clear in their voices that the intent had changed, that it had gone from _capture_ to _kill_ , and Stiles felt his grin stretch to skull-sized proportions.  He was just a little disappointed but not entirely surprised that the new Alpha wasn’t in their present company.  He wasn’t after the pack anyway, just everyone complicit in _making his dad bleed_.

They came in fast after the split-second obligatory wail and keen and his blood sang with it, welcoming the bastards in.  The wolves were beside themselves with grief and rage, forgetting any planning they might have made, each after their own kill, oblivious of how they got in one another’s way.  Made it easy for Stiles to take one at at time, quiver of poisoned darts replacing the knife that had lodged itself in the Alpha’s breastbone.  

They were silver, tiny and sharp and coated in a proprietary mix of spider and jellyfish venom.  With a little homing spell and _shove_ , a simple practiced flick of the wrist would send a few into eyes and arteries and the sad little wolf would be down, paralyzed instantly by neurotoxins.  The rest was the work of that werewolf enhanced metabolism pushing a cell-melting enzyme through their whole bodies lightning quick, leaving them to die slowly and painfully, incapable of removing the little spines from their bodies and therefore incapable of healing before they died.

It would have been a greater mercy to shove wolfsbane down their throats.  That was kind of the point.

That was two more down, the hotheads gurgling and moaning into their deaths, the final three much more cautious in their approach.  He had a couple throwing knives left, wolfsbane poisoned but easier to dodge because of their size.  He missed on the first throw altogether, but it gave him the opening he needed, wolf thinking that was Stile’s last and launching himself, claws extended, belly fully exposed, giving Stiles a big enough target that he had no need for spells or really even aim, just quick enough reflexes  to dive and roll out of the way as the dying wolf crashed down.

Two left, and they were circling him, much more cautious.  This was when it would get interesting.  _This_ was the moment he had missed when killing simple humans.  He was buzzing with residual magic, the kind that would take too much time and attention to use offensively, but he could still wrap it around himself, could still make the electrons around him dance and make it hard for them to see him clearly, give them migraines if they tried to focus on him, make them have to fight the instinct to protect their finely tuned senses in order just to look in his direction.  

Isaac had said it was like trying to look into the sun, and Stiles only did it rarely, knowing he would spend the next few days with a migraine of his own.  But it wasn’t like these guys were going to stop for anything, and he was well past a point in his life where he expected any rescue.  In fact, if Derek were to step in at this moment, Stiles was pretty certain he’d hurt the man as well, given that he should be with his dad, and his dad should be with a doctor.

The few moments it took for the werewolves to adjust, to figure out how to fight him blind was enough time for Stiles to pull out his final knife, a long and thin silver dagger.  It had been a decorative piece at one point, a ridiculously long letter opener, but it could be sharpened and was strong enough to suit Stiles’ needs (carving knives in silver cutlery almost always had stainless steel blades so that they’d hold a keen edge and point, useful for the turkey, but not so useful for the wolf).  It wasn’t that silver was deadly on its own, but it was an irritant, it inhibited healing, and therefore if used right could make a wolf bleed out.

He held the claw in his other fist.  Even if he had all the poisons and lethal bullets in the world, he’d die before he’d let that get taken from him, and when the chips were truly down, it was the one weapon he would always turn to.  He wasn’t sure, because he had no proof of it, but he liked to think that it had a certain magic of its own, the kind of magic that craved the taste of blood.

Stiles didn’t need to see them to know where they were.  He kept his vision wide and not entirely focused, tracking motion in the distance but cataloguing it as inconsequential.  He ducked and slid almost unconsciously as the first strike came at him, slipping behind the overextended werewolf and driving his blade deep into the creatures’ kidney before he danced off out of reach.

The second wolf vaulted over his friend and came at Stiles properly, fast and hiding all his soft parts, but Stiles was able to sidestep the attack, so that what should have gutted him only opened four shallow cuts across his belly that Stiles, in the white space he’d slipped into, didn’t even feel.

The world around him had slowed down.  This had happened before in his life, once or twice, and he didn’t think it was adrenaline.  It felt like some sort of grace.  He threw his arm out as the wolf grazed past and caught him in the throat, cutting deep with the banshee’s claw, coating his hand with furnace-hot blood and causing considerable blood loss before the wound healed, driving the second wolf on to his knees just as the first wolf closed in again and Stiles leapt back and around with a sure-footed grace that felt more natural than breathing.

It was a dance after that, a bullfighter’s sidestep and thrust, slowing them down incrementally and giving them no quarter to recover between slashes strikes and blows.  Stiles knew he was bleeding, torso arms and legs all ribboned, and he could feel the ink on his skin fending off the pain, clotting the blood somewhat, keeping him fast and light on his feet.  

He knew he’d pay for his sins later, it would all hurt like hell later, but for the moment, it was nothing but glory as one wolf lay half-conscious at his feet and he threw his blade right through the last wolf’s throat just as he tried to turn and run away.  

If he’d been perfectly healthy the wolf might have been able to survive this, but he’d been far from well when he decided to cut and run and no one was around to pull the offending knife out of his severed spine, and so what was left of his blood poured out around the blade, his heart slowing to a stop more quickly than Stiles even thought it would.  

He knelt down to the wolf at his feet and slit his throat wide open, making a second pass to sever the spine and remove the head completely.  He did this with every body, methodically.  Peter had taught him a number of things, first among them being that dead wasn’t always dead.

The outside world finally started to slip in, the quiet fading into birds and bugs and faraway traffic as he looked at the carnage and wondered how the hell he was going to take care of so many bodies when someone cleared their throat behind him, shuffling their feet with a quiet rustle.  Stiles spun, hiding his exhaustion with a snarl, and then felt his heart stop at the scene behind him.  

Derek, standing right behind his dad, radiating regret.  His dad, pale as a ghost, slightly hunched in injury and hugging himself tight, his eyes red and jaw clenched tight.  Stiles' first instinct was to run.  To run like hell and just keep moving, but he didn’t have the strength to lift a single foot.  

And anyway, the time for running was long past.

He only realized that he had slipped down to his knees when he felt them getting wet from the blood-soaked ground he had been standing in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> took some liberties here and there, (don't actually remember if silver really does anything), and it was about as hard to get out as flossing piranha teeth, but I'm pretty happy with it. Not making promises, but the next should be coming shortly.


	43. the only thing to call it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The only thing he knew with any sort of certainty was that even though this moment had changed everything, it had also changed nothing._

It was... It was beautiful.  It was his son, dancing in a field of corpses, his son _killing_ people, and it was beautiful.  It reminded him of something he’d seen once, fishing for Bluegill on a trip out east.  In the fresh dawn light, he watched a hawk fall out of the sky to pluck a dove from mid-flight, dipping low and close to the pond and drifting off effortlessly.  You could feel sorry for the dove, be stunned by the swift finality of it all, but in the end the only thing to call it was beautiful.

The Sheriff had been cold-cocked back at the motel room, his ears were still ringing from it, and his arm was burning from the shallow cuts they’d given him, but none of this explained the strange light-headed numbness he was feeling.  

He had been all right enough to bust out of the door as soon as he heard the howling, slipping past Derek’s attempts to get him to stay back, thinking him a fool for leaving his child behind, for letting them chase his boy down, weak half-hearted explanations notwithstanding.  Now he thought maybe he knew what the words were that Derek hadn’t been saying, understood why Derek was so much more concerned with the Sheriff staying put than finding and retrieving Stiles.

He was still puzzling over the warning that Derek had given when they reached the edge of the dry wash, why Derek would choose to say that he could hurt his eyes if he watched Stiles too closely.  It hadn’t hurt his eyes at all.  He could see Stiles clear as day, four dead and dying around him, two getting cut down piece by piece, but maybe Stiles had been doing something to the wolves’ eyes.  They didn’t seem to be able to see him clearly at all, and Derek had been squinting.

So it felt like the show was just for him, just like it had been with the hawk, not a soul around to see, and no words you could describe it with that would do it justice, the way Stiles’ eyes were clear and focused, completely unafraid, the way his body moved _so_ damned gracefully, not a single slip or misstep in his dance.  He should have been horrified, as well, at the wounds his son was taking, but they were like an afterthought, a flourish that adorned his boy and didn’t break his stride.

The bile did rise eventually, when the fighting stopped and he watched his son methodically _behead_ all those men.  He felt something then, felt himself fighting back tears, but he still wasn’t sure what those tears were for, if they were for himself, or his son, or a world that had just become a thousand times more bloody than he had ever suspected it to be, or if it was all just too much, because he still had no words for it, still didn’t know _what_ he was feeling.

The only thing he knew with any sort of certainty was that even though this moment had changed everything, it had also changed nothing.  

He was a father before he was anything, before he was a man of god, or a man with a gun and a badge, or a widower or, deep down inside, a child perpetually overwhelmed by the world surrounding him – he was a father, and he’d move mountains for his boy, he’d _kill_ for his boy, even if he knew it was wrong.  He’d give his own life.  Readily, easily, without question.

But he still didn’t know what he felt.  Only that, as Stiles rounded on them in surprise, he would have been incapable of defending himself against his son, and as his boy dropped to his knees, he just wanted to pick him up and take him, carry him like he had when he was little, hide him from all the bad things that might want to steal him away, and it didn’t matter, not one bit, that his son might just be one of those bad things.

It didn’t matter at all.


	44. being who he was

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Derek had, in one little corner of his brain, been waiting for the moment when Stiles couldn’t handle it any more. He’d been waiting for the moment when the sky would crack open and all his world would catch fire again, and he wondered if that moment had finally arrived._

_They can’t handle it_.  It’s what his father had told him, when Derek had been young and asked why he couldn’t tell, why it wasn’t a good idea for him to get too close to his school friends.  They can’t handle it.  It was all he would say on the matter, and with the false wisdom of youth Derek had thought his dad had nothing more to say because it was really little more than dogma.

He’d made human friends, once or twice.  Had told them, once or twice, had let something slip here and there, and although nothing disastrous had come of it, he watched the way those friendships became brittle and jagged.  He watched the look in their eyes, the way he’d catch them looking, the way he became a _something_ instead of a _someone_ , until eventually he would be the one to back away, to grow cold and distant.

After Kate, he’d stopped doubting his dad.  Late, far too late, irredeemably late, but he didn’t doubt those words any more.

Stiles, though, Stiles had always been the exception.  He’d figured it out before Scott had, joking about it in the woods the day that Derek had first seen them, but behind the joke had been a core of belief.  And when he had proof, solid and evident in front of him, Stiles handled it better than anyone else ever had.

Handled it all, until the moment he saw his father and knew his father had _seen_ him, seen what had become of all Stiles’ fluid adaptation, all this handling of everything that had been thrown at him.

Derek had, in one little corner of his brain, been waiting for the moment when Stiles couldn’t handle it any more.  He’d been waiting for the moment when the sky would crack open and all his world would catch fire again, and he wondered if that moment had finally arrived.

He wished he knew what the Sheriff was thinking, wished he could read the Sheriff well enough to know what the hunch in his shoulders meant, what that total stillness of his meant as he watched his son kill.  But he thought he could read it well enough in Stiles’ face, in his total devastation, in the way he fell to his knees and then covered his head with bloodied hands.

It was Stiles’ loud sob that seemed to finally get the Sheriff moving, got him scrambling down into the ditch and pulling his son up out of the pool of blood he’d landed in, bringing him close, pulling his arms down and muttering _“Hey, hey...  it’s okay, son, you hear me?  It’s okay...”_

The quiet in that tone, the care, so like a dad soothing a bad scrape, it was so intimate and right and so completely _wrong_ to hear in the middle of a field of bodies that his mind just shut it down, shut it out and left it for him to deal with later, when it was quiet, when it was safe to gnaw on like an old bone.

Because, after all, “We’re going to have to figure out what to do with the bodies.”

The Sheriff glanced up and nodded, and Stiles snorted out a little laugh.  “Oh, so it’s _we_ , now, eh?  Where the fuck was that _we_ a couple minutes ago?”

Solid ground, that.  Stiles bitching after the fight.  It was almost mandatory, a moment’s bickering to tell each other that they were still okay, still relatively intact.  Still alive enough to fight.

Derek cracked a lazy grin and ignored his own relieved sigh, “Looked to me like you were doing just fine.”

Stiles raised both eyebrows.  “ _Just fine?_ Will you look at my fucking clothes?  I swear to fucking christ, Derek, it’s like every time I’m around you my clothes just get ripped off my–”

Whatever he’d been about to say died on Stiles’ lips when his dad cleared his throat.  Derek thought Stiles had sort of forgotten, for just a second, the enormity of everything that had just happened, and he saw genuine terror flash on his face as he looked at his father, but the Sheriff just raised an eyebrow of his own.

“The man has a point, son.  We have a hell of a mess to clean up here.”

His tone was completely neutral, but the _we_ spoke volumes.  At least Derek hoped it did.  It looked like Stiles thought so too, nodding and swallowing back something as he looked down at his feet and then around at the scene.

There would be time enough to figure it all out later.  For the time being there were bodies to dump into a deep gully and some sort of hiding-things spell that seemed to take everything out of Stiles that he had left.  The Sheriff helped walk Stiles to the car as Derek cleaned out their rooms.

Much as he would have liked to have taken a moment to fix up both injured men, there was a pack out there that was going to come looking for their fallen soon, and far too much blood on all of them for them to be spending any more time than was necessary in that place.  

He fervently hoped that Stiles’ spell would hold off any chance discovery before the pack found the bodies (nothing would keep _them_ from finding their brethren).  There were far too many cameras and far too many witnesses capable of putting them at the scene if the bodies were discovered before they had been laid to rest.  Pack etiquette being what it was, a matter of this sort would not be taken to the law.  It wouldn’t even be just cause for a feud, given that they were hunting a bounty and kidnapping a young man when they died.

(Not that there was such a thing as a binding law for werewolf-kind; they were packs, their own tribes, following rules of their own.  Just that it was common sense, dog sense – if you start a fight and get bit in the process, you have no right to bitch about it.)

He ditched his phone as well.  Left it on with a full charge and the ringer off, dropped it into a car that had its back window cracked open and Minnesota license plates.  He handed off Stiles’ first aid bag before stuffing everything else into the trunk and slipping into the driver’s seat.

Up until that point, the Sheriff had done all the driving and Derek hadn’t minded, but given everyone’s condition, from that point forward Derek wasn’t giving up the steering wheel to do anything other than piss.  He drove straight through, stopping only for gas, and the Stilinski men mostly just slept in the back seat.  He hit that fugue state that highway driving can induce, reaching familiar ground far sooner than he had expected, and was slightly startled by the Sheriff when he leaned forward and quietly asked him to take the next exit.

They were still about an hour out of town, in an unpopulated woodsy area that Derek had explored from time to time both on two feet and on four, and apparently Stiles’ father had a cabin out there, down a fire lane and not far from a small lake.  To call the area rural would be an exaggeration.  

The large single room cabin was sound and weather tight, but the water came through an antique hand-pump in the sink and the toilet was an outhouse fifty feet away.  No power, not even a generator, just a stack of wood, a beautiful fully-functional wood burning stove and a larder full of non-perishables.

The Sheriff shrugged when Derek shot him a questioning glance.  “I had an uncle who was a historian.  He wrote his dissertation on pioneer history.  Built this place and lived out here for a whole year, just to prove a point.  He and Stiles had a lot in common.”

The place was furnished with simple canvas deck chairs and cots.  The Sheriff set up the cots with mountains of blankets while Derek retrieved Stiles.  The kid was still passed out and whimpering in pain every time he was jostled.  It broke Derek’s heart that he couldn’t soothe any of it away, but something about all the magic he’d carved into himself made for terrible results when they tried to take his pain, even when he was as worn out an depleted as he was then.

Both Derek and the Sheriff tended to Stiles, finally giving his injuries more than just cursory first aid.  He woke up a little and smiled weakly, asking for water and something to cover his eyes with before he drifted off again.  Derek would have been alarmed at his pallor and listlessness, but he’d seen it before when Stiles pushed just a bit too hard.  

The Sheriff had shaken his head with a wry expression after they were done.  “Here I’d been thinking that these ‘episodes’ were the result of Adderall abuse.”

Derek answered just as quietly, helping the Sheriff shuck his coat, not letting the man get away with ignoring his own injuries any longer.  “He stopped taking that a few years ago.  Said it interfered.”

The Sheriff huffed a laugh “Is that so?  Would have been nice to know before all those co-pays went to waste.”

“He’s been afraid, sir,” Derek answered, ignoring the Sheriff’s hiss as he peeled the shirt off the man’s wounds, “He says he’s worried for your safety, but I think he’s just as worried about what you might think of him.”

The Sheriff gave little more than a tight lipped nod in response, looking down at his son’s sleeping form.  His wounds were hot, red-edged and angry.  The man had clearly spent the whole drive tending to his son, ignoring his own wounds completely.  Like father, like son, Derek supposed, and stopped the Sheriff when he reached for the cleansing wipes.

“These are in pretty bad shape, sir.  There’s something I could do that might be better.”

The Sheriff raised a skeptical eyebrow but nodded.  “Okay.  But no licking.”

Derek grinned a little, laying hands over the wounds and taking their pain and infection into himself, pouring some of his own healing power into the man.  It had been a hard-fought skill for Derek.  He’d gone to Deaton by himself after he’d seen what Isaac could do, what came so naturally for him.  Learnt that he’d built so many protective layers around himself that he’d denied himself his own birthright, and he had to fight to let go, to let others in enough to take their pain and give them a little of himself.

It still wasn’t effortless, apparently for some it never was, but at least now he could do it.  At least now he could do more than rend and kill, and even if he couldn’t do this for Stiles, he could do it for his dad, which was close enough to the same thing for it not to matter much.

As he watched the Sheriff’s shoulders loosen, heard his sigh of relief and helped him lay down, Derek found himself to be grateful.  He was filled with gratefulness, it felt like it was glowing out of him, warm and breathtaking.  Grateful that he could do good, that he could prove to someone that he was good for more than violence and pain.  Grateful that he could give back, for once, that he could help Stiles heal, help keep him safe.  Grateful that he could take a man’s pain and weariness and give him rest and respite just by being who he was.

When he told Scott that the bite was a gift, he hadn’t really known what he was talking about.  He thought maybe he did, that it had to do with strength, power and invulnerability, but now he realized he’d had no clue.

For the first time in his life he found himself waking up to the idea that maybe, even for him and all the unintended pain his circumstance had wrought, his presence could be a gift just as much as it had ever been a curse.

He dreamt, when he slept, for the first time in a long, long time, he dreamt of being in his mother’s arms, of warmth and safety.  He dreamt and it did not swerve into a nightmare like it so often did.  He dreamt and for the first time since her death, he did not wake in tears.


	45. stay on your game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Derek drank Stiles in, surprising himself with how clearly he knew exactly what he wanted._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Those with delicate constitutions and weak hearts are advised to avert their gazes.  
> Hope this was worth the wait. : )

Derek was woken by a gasp, a sniff and the sound of a solid _thwack_.  At some other time he might have just rolled over and let Stiles do what he needed to get things out of his system, but not now, not after the shitstorm that had become of Stiles’ life, that the stubborn kid had _made_ of his life, good intentions notwithstanding.

He followed the sounds and found him easily, well out of human earshot of the house, trying his level best to beat the shit out of a pine tree.  He figured that was near about what he would find.  Stiles’ knuckles were a mess and the tree was pretty much completely unharmed, save for a bit of missing bark and nice bloodstain.  

There was something ridiculously arousing about the sight.  Stiles was wearing nothing but a low slung pair of pants, the moonlight bleaching out his tan, his anger made _physical_ in a way that Derek hadn’t ever witnessed before, hadn’t ever allowed himself to look at too closely.  

He did this time.  Stood back and watched the flex and pull, the sheer force with which he propelled his body, feeling a growing heat and pressure low in his belly.  Derek drank Stiles in, surprising himself with how clearly he knew exactly what he wanted.  

Stiles didn’t stop, didn’t turn, gritting out  “Could you just fuck off, Derek?  Just for–”

That was as far as he got before Derek reached out, grabbed Stiles’ wrist and spun him around, slamming him against the tree and kissing him hard enough to steal his breath.  Stiles pulled Derek’s head back by the hair, eyes flashing anger and wicked curiosity in equal measure.

“What happened to the whole _‘not so close to the moon’_ thing?  Suddenly not a problem anymore?”

Derek glanced up at the full moon reaching its zenith above their heads, could feel it singing in his blood.  But he’d just watched Stiles annihilate six wolves, and he didn’t much care to measure the odds.  If he did something Stiles didn’t want him to, he was pretty certain Stiles would stop him in one way or another.

Not that he was going to admit it.  He just grinned, fangs already flashing,  “Yeah.  It could definitely be a problem.  Might want to stay on your game.” And dove in for another brutal kiss.

Stiles kissed back just as hard, not letting go of Derek’s hair, pushing forward and tripping Derek up so that he fell on his back and Stiles landed on top of him, still kissing, not even stopping to breathe.  It was a nice trick.  Derek was hoping he’d get to see a lot of those.

It took a nanosecond for both of them to be hard and panting like prom-desperate teenagers, Stiles’ thigh tucked up between Derek’s leg, both of them rutting against each other with rough and desperate thrusts, kissing each other ravenously, all teeth and tongues like they couldn’t get deep enough, hands gripping at shoulders and necks with bruising force.  

It was a pretty even match until Stiles finally broke free, wrenching Derek’s henley off and taking the upper hand definitively, permanently, although Derek would say it was only because Stiles cheated and used magic.  It was some sort of magic that had his hands lighting up and felt to Derek as though someone was running a sparkler over his skin, leaving trails of raw and heat in their wake.  

Nothing electrical to it, no, and he found himself grateful for that, wondering how much Stiles knew about the Argent penchant for cattle prods.  Just an insistent sting that had just the right amount of burn to make it impossible for Derek to ignore a single stroke or touch, that lit up all his nerves and had him shuddering in ways very little ever did, cutting right through every werewolf defense that made him both inured to pain and vaguely numb.

Those hands _had_ him, controlled him so that his whole body would chase Stiles’ touch, arching and swaying with Stiles’ hands as he stroked over every inch of skin he could reach.  He didn’t even register exactly when and how he ended up with his pants down to his knees, only realized it when Stiles ran a grazing touch all the way up his inner thigh, slipping off at the crease between his ass and leg, making Derek try to drop his legs as far open as he could with his knees still trapped in denim.

It took very little nudging on Stiles’ part to get Derek to roll over, ass in the air and stretched out long and tight like a cat, inviting those hands back to his skin, anywhere they wanted to go.  He felt shameless.  He was shameless, and with the moon urging him on, it felt incredibly right.  And from the reverent groan and whispered “ _Holy fuck, Derek,_ ” he knew had nothing to be ashamed of.

Stiles’ fingers shifted from sting to heat when they slipped over his ass, making Derek sweat, giving enough slick for Stiles to breach him slowly, softening Derek’s muscles and making him feel every inch of his finger with a heady weight.  He thought Stiles would have taken his time, would have been carefully methodical, but Derek wasn’t having any of that, thrusting back and growling for more, unsatisfied until Stiles was buried balls deep in him and pushing hard like he’d been hitting the tree, pounding grunts out of Derek’s chest.

And he was almost there, Derek was so _damned close_ that it was just about driving him insane, felt like he'd been hanging on the edge forever until Stiles pressed himself close to Derek and whispered “Come on, Derek.  Let go.  It’s okay, just let it out.  _Let go_.”

Derek hoped he’d read that right, hoped he wasn’t crossing some line, but when Stiles started running sparking hands over his ribs and back and then ventured to his aching cock, he couldn’t have held back even if he’d wanted to.  He shifted, felt his claws dig into the ground, felt fangs and fur coming out, felt everything _change_ and then felt himself come so hard it was almost painful, his coughing growl almost drowning out Stiles’ own stuttered groan and litany of prayers and cusses.

They collapsed in a heap, and even though Derek had calmed, it still took him a couple breaths to shift back to fully human.

He had half a second to feel a flush of embarrassment, to relive a forgotten moment, an accidental shift and Kate’s subsequent revulsion, before he felt Stiles hugging him closer, snugging up inside him even as he softened, laughing with a soft whisper, “Holy shit, that was _so hot_.  I can’t even remember what I was so pissed off about.”

Derek squeezed his hand, hoping Stiles could feel the _thank you_ that he couldn’t bring himself to mention.  Stiles hugged him hard before he finally slipped away and started setting himself to rights.

He tossed Derek’s shirt back to him, laughing lightly, clearly as blissed out as Derek felt.  “Damn, I think I got pine needles in my _everything_.  Next time you want to throw yourself at me in the woods, bring a blanket, will you?’

Derek huffed, working his way back into his pants. “Hey, it’s not like I planned any of this.  I just came out here to defend that poor helpless tree.”

Stiles glanced at the tree before dropping back down next to Derek.  “Well, I’d say your attempt at creating a diversion was incredibly effective, there wolfman.”  

He butted his head lightly against Derek’s, kissing him lightly on the cheek before collapsing against him.  Derek wrapped and arm around Stiles, taking his weight effortlessly, needing the closeness as much as Stiles did.

They stayed like that for a while, watching the view the moon and their little hillside had to offer, listening to the soft sounds of the quiet night before Derek sighed, knowing that even though a good fuck could help a lot of things, Stiles still needed a lot more rest than he was giving himself.

“You have got to stop pushing so hard, Stiles.  When are you going to give yourself a break?”

Stiles stole a quick look at Derek.  “I know, okay.  Don’t you think I know?  I just can’t – I can’t stop feeling like it’s not over yet, like something’s just around the corner, and if I close my eyes for too long...”

Derek could only nod.  Both because he knew exactly how that felt and also, even if he wasn’t going to say it out loud, because Stiles tended to have impeccable instincts.  It could just be shell-shock, the vestiges of spending too much time having no one watching his back, but it might not.  It might not – and if Stiles was ever to catch a break, it meant Derek was going to have to take the heat for him.

“So, now there’s two of us.  How about you close your eyes and let me do the watching for a while?”

Sometimes, even when these sorts of things were an absolute given, it mattered  to say them out loud.  And if there was one thing Stiles needed to hear, maybe a hundred times a day, it was that he wasn’t alone. 

Derek knew exactly how that felt as well.

So they walked back to the cabin, making a detour to the car for wipes and wishing for a shower as they cleaned as well as they could.  They both changed into cleaner clothes and crept as quietly as they could back into the small cabin, careful not to wake the snoring Sheriff.

Derek made it a point to move a chair so that he sat right next to Stiles, practically on top of him, close enough that Stiles could feel his watching presence even in his sleep.  And because he said he would, he kept watch the whole night through, finding his own kind of respite in the sound of deep soft snores around him.


	46. what did you do?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He should have gutted Peter when he had the chance. How many times had he said that to himself? He’d lost count. It was easily becoming the biggest regret of his life, and he had a few massive moments of stupidity to compare it to, so that was actually saying quite a lot._

The midday sun coming through the little cabin windows dragged Stiles awake like a kitten clawing his face.  He rolled over with a groan, feeling a kick of nausea with the movement.  Great.

Yeah.  He’d been surprised when he’d woken up the night before feeling little more than cotton-headed, pleased that he’d recovered as quickly as he had from his Abuse of Power, but guessed that his subsequent Shenanigans With Derek finally broke the camel’s back.  Whatever.  It had been sooo worth it.

He would have doubted that it had even happened if it wasn’t for the patch of sap still in his hair, groaned again when he tugged on the shit a little too hard, and apparently that was enough to alert the locals that he was awake.  He registered a quiet exchange before Derek slipped in, letting a stab of light in.

“Hey.”  He crouched next to the cot, laying a light hand over one of Stiles’.  Stiles answered with a small groan.  “Hurting?”  He figured he didn’t need to answer that.  A curious herbal smell got Stiles to crack an eye open.  Derek was holding a cup of something up for Stiles.

“Talked to Deaton,  He said this could help.  Think you can drink it?”

It smelled like shit but it made his mouth water, which was usually a telltale sign that both Deaton and his body knew exactly what he needed.  He lifted himself up on one elbow and reached for the cup, unbelievably grateful that it was only half-full, because as much as his body may have needed what was in it, Stiles could already tell that it was going to taste like horse shit.

It did, and it left his mouth numb and gritty, but Stiles had been down that path enough times that he was an expert at quashing his gag reflex.  It settled into his nerve endings, softening the sharp stabs of pain and filling him with a soft warmth.  He lay back down with a small laugh, trying to identify the familiar aftertaste.

“Holy shit, the doc’s been holding out on me.  You’re gonna have to give me the recipe for that one.”

Derek grinned a little, but it wasn’t enough to reach his eyes.  “So it worked?”

“Fuck yeah, it worked.  Thanks.”

But Derek dropped his smile and shook his head a little.  “Something tells me you’re not going to be thanking me for long.”

Stiles wanted to sit up, but his whole body had gone as soft as noodles.  The best he could do was tilt his head and give Derek the stink-eye.  “What did you do, Derek?”

At least Derek had the graces to look sheepish as he answered.  “Sorry, but something came up, and I need you to sit this one out, Stiles.”

Stiles narrowed his eyes even more.  “Derek.  What.  Did.  You.  Do.”  

It was pathetic, really.  he was trying to sound angry, but it just came out sort of sleepy and goofy.  He couldn’t really _remember_ how to be angry.  The whole world was turning into soft and fluffy clouds.

Derek just narrowed his eyes back at Stiles.  “Nothing your dad didn’t approve of.  You need some rest.  I’m making sure that happens.”

There was something about all this that should have infuriated Stiles.  He knew that, he really did, but he was kind of losing track of anything that even resembled clear thinking.  It wasn’t all fluffy clouds, though.  There was a corner in the back of his head where some part of himself was sitting with his head between his knees shouting ‘ _Brace, brace, brace_!’ like a countdown, but he figured he was going to have to figure it all out later.  

He gave it one last try, though, while he still had enough in him to keep his eyes open, looking as seriously as he could, but all he could manage to get out was “Derrk, whu–” before his brain just gave up the ghost altogether and he slipped into a blissful, pain-free daze.  His last thought felt like a little victory, though.  He had finally identified the familiar aftertaste.

Poppies.

 

Motherfucking poppies.

He woke up in such a rage that he hardly even registered how _well_ he felt, how long it had been since he had felt so clear-headed and fit.  As far as he was concerned that was just a ‘the better to beat your ass into the ground with, Derek’ bonus, and not really anything to be glowing about.  He was going to feed that goddamned arrogant bastard his own fucking liver as soon as he got his hands on him.

Of course, he had to find him first.  Or, to be more precise, he had to find his pants first, because those seemed to have gone mysteriously absent during his sleep.  There was, in fact, a whole change of clothes sitting on the chair next to his bed, along with the wipes they’d been using as an ad-hock sponge-bath, and a toothbrush.

Which got him realizing how much his mouth tasted like something had died in it.  He kind of smelled like that, too.  The late afternoon light was starting to look awfully suspicious the more he started to _think_ and take in his state, and he finally gave credence to the little voice that was muttering in the back of his head.

Ignoring all personal hygiene, he walked outside in boxer shorts, running into his dad coming back from the lake with a string of fish in hand and asked the only question which seemed to matter anymore.

“How long was I out?”

His dad hadn’t even noticed him, he’d been keeping his eyes on the ground as he walked, and his head shot up when he heard Stiles’ voice.

“ _Well_ , looks like sleeping beauty’s up.”

It was starting to make him anxious.  “Seriously, Dad.  How long was I asleep?”

His dad shrugged noncommittally.  “You weren’t exactly _asleep_ the whole time, but you’ve been pretty far gone for about a day and a half.”

He wasn’t exactly sure why, but that just made him panic more.  “Where’s Derek?”  Maybe if he got out some aggression he’d feel a little less strung out.

His dad’s eyes darkened with worry at that, even though he tried to keep his tone light as he walked back into the cabin, taking his time with the answer.

When they were both inside, he set down his catch and looked at Stiles square in the eye.  “He went ahead, Stiles.  You needed to rest, we didn’t want to move you, so he decided to... run, I guess?”

There was so much more he wasn’t saying.  “ _Why_ , Dad?  Why didn’t he just stay here with us?” 

And there it was, the reason for his unease – he could remember Derek saying something about something ‘coming up’.  It was always such a spectacular catastrophe when Derek tried to fix things on his own.  No wonder he was panicking.

His dad had moved to the sink, cleaning the fish even though he’d already prepped them down by the lake, most likely so he had something to do, so he wouldn’t have to look at Stiles while he talked.  _That_ was never a good thing.  He remembered lots of conversations with his dad’s back.  Conversation along the lines of ‘the doctors aren’t sure she’s going to make it’.  Stiles loosened the fists he hadn’t even realized making and willed himself to calm down.

“Peter pressed charges, Stiles.”  His dad tilted his head a bit, “Against you.”  As if _that_ needed to be clarified.  “Derek went back to see if he could do anything about it, seeing as anyone coming back with you is either aiding and abetting or bringing you in.”

Anyone meaning his dad.  Motherfucking bitch of a position for his dad to be in, seeing as he _was_ the Sheriff.  It had been bad enough that one time he’d lost his job.  Okay, that one time Stiles had made him lose his job.  He’d sworn, when he saw how much it had ground his dad down, that he wasn’t ever going to let the man be put into that position again because of him.

He should have gutted Peter when he had the chance.  How many times had he said that to himself?  He’d lost count.  It was easily becoming the biggest regret of his life, and he had a few massive moments of stupidity to compare it to, so that was actually saying quite a lot.  So it was probably high time to stop contemplating his checkered past and start dealing with the matter at hand.  Like gutting the fucker in the present moment.

His brain was finally catching up to the matters at hand.  “How did you guys know all this?”  

“My cell.  We all have these unregistered emergency contact phones.  Set it up after the massacre at the station... Wait, was that...?”

“Definitely supernatural in nature.  Not werewolves, though.”  At least, technically not.  There were a few things his dad never needed to know about, and one of them was the exact culpability of all the players behind the Kanima Klusterfuck of Doom.  “Anyway, back to your cell.”

The Sheriff bobbed his head in reply.  “Got a call from one of the deputies, giving me the heads up.”

“So, Peter’s pressing charges.  What did Derek say he intended to do about it?”  Please, let it be _gut the fucker_ , and not –

“He was going to see if he could talk his uncle into dropping it.”

Fuck.

All the things he had just been thinking about doing to Derek, he took it all back.  He took it all back desperately, praying to all the gods he knew that they not let Derek die.  

Unfortunately, he also knew what fickle bitches gods could be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Brace, brace, brace' being what airline attendants purportedly shout like a mantra as their plane is hurtling out of the sky to make an emergency *landing*.


	47. be careful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“And as for drugging you, I’m not apologizing for that either, because there’s no way in hell I’m letting the best sex I’ve ever had in my life be a contributing factor in your death.”_

The Sheriff preempted Stiles’ imminent head-explosion by handing him the cell. “Just hit redial.  He bought a burner when he got in town.”

Stiles stormed out of the cabin, making sure to get well out of earshot before he called the number and prepared to scream his lungs out.  It hardly even rang before Derek was on the other end.  Stiles didn’t wait to make sure it was him before he started laying in.

“You motherfucking _idiot_!  What the fuck, exactly, is it you were think–”

But Derek cut right through his rant the way he always could, voice calm and commanding. “ _I was thinking_ that telling your dad, _the Sheriff_ , that I was going to run ahead home, kill my uncle and make it look like he left town or just went apeshit, _was not the best idea_ , Stiles.  Ever hear of plausible deniability?  Do you need me to explain _that_ to you?”

Well that was... Okay, so maybe he hadn’t given the man enough credit.  Or, to be fair, any credit at all.  It kind of humbled the words right out of him.

Which was okay, because Derek wasn’t quite done.  “And as for drugging you, I’m not apologizing for that either, because there’s no way in hell I’m letting the best sex I’ve ever had _in my life_ be a contributing factor in your death.”

Damn.  He could feel the heat of a blush crawling all the way up his neck.  “Umm, well, okay.  Yeah.  So... How are things going?”

He could fucking _hear_ the eye rolling.  But then again, he probably deserved it.  “ _Things_ are not going anywhere.  I’m pretty sure Peter’s around, but I can’t get a lead on him, so wherever he is, he’s dug in pretty deep, and it’s got nothing to do with the cops, because they’re looking for him, too.”

Stiles gave a sharp breath at that.  He was pretty sure Peter knew _exactly_ how much it fucked with him that his dad had to be in the middle of this, (It had him _attacking trees,_ for fuck’s sake) but he also had no doubt that one-armed Peter’s need for revenge knew no bounds.

From the softening in his tone, it sounded like Derek knew exactly what Stiles was thinking.  “Stiles, your dad is still better off knowing everything and there with you than he would be if he was still here for Peter to...”  Could Derek hear the way Stiles’ grip had hardened on the phone?  Maybe it was just his breathing that stopped him.  “Anyway, it’s working to our advantage that he’s not showing his face, because I still haven’t figured out how to get rid of him without it casting suspicion on you guys.”

Right.  Clearly, Stiles had been letting himself get way too fucking emotional, because he hadn’t even thought of that.  “Shit.  Any ideas?”  And obviously, his brain was only working half as well as mister _‘plausible deniability’_ over there, so hopefully he had at least something to start with.

“I don’t think making it look like he’s left town is going to do any good unless we can find some way to make it look like he actually arrived somewhere else.  We’ve come up with a couple ways to make it look like he’s suffering from some kind of break with reality, but they’re all pretty weak.”  There was a pause but Stiles could tell, even over the cheap phones, that it was just Derek gearing up to say something he didn’t like.  “Lydia wants to tell the cops that you shot Peter’s arm off to stop him raping her.  She figures then that we could just kill him and make it look like he went after her again.”

Stiles was shaking his head hard, even if no one could see it.  “No, Derek, that’s not an option.”  She was number one on Stiles’ list of Who Had Been Fucked With Enough By Peter.

Derek gave a small sigh.  “Believe me Stiles, I feel the same way.  But you know she’d kill us if that was our only option and we didn’t use it.”

True.  Most likely she’d do it slowly, too, and involve copious amounts of testicle abuse.  “Okay, so, we come up with something better.  Isn’t the timing way off anyway?”

“He’s already fully healed, so he can’t tell the truth about the timing anyway.  Apparently he was really vague about that when he gave his report.  It’s one of the things that has the DA holding back on pressing charges against you.  That, and the fact that now he’s not available to answer any questions.”

“Wait – no charges yet?”

“Yeah.  You’re still wanted for questioning, but no one’s looking to arrest you.  The detectives on the case are trying to be impartial, but they have a lot of problems with Peter’s credibility.  Mostly with the timing and why he waited so long to say anything.  I mean, there’s the arm attached to your jeep, but since to them it looks like Peter had to have sustained the injuries a while ago, that could easily look like a set-up.”

So he had to admit, even to himself, that things could be significantly worse.  “So, I guess that means I could come back if I wanted to.”

Derek gave that a long pause, but Stiles had the distinct impression that it wasn’t because he was distracted.  When he finally spoke up, it was a little more puny than Stiles had been expecting.

“Honestly?  Yeah, I want you here.  But I’m not sure it would be a good thing for your dad to be here.  I don’t have a clue about my uncle’s endgame, and I’m not willing to put him in the line of fire any more than he’s already been.”

“So, dad can stay here.  Might even be a good thing for him to be gone when Peter disappears.  Except, of course, he wouldn’t have anyone to back up his alibi.  Not that I’d make a credible witness, but...”

“There anybody your dad trusts enough to have a fishing trip with?  He could even say he was staying out of town in order not to put biased pressure on the proceedings, or something.”

That was brilliant.  Absolutely brilliant.  He tried not to say as much while he and Derek wrapped up the conversation, but he could tell by the smugness in the smug bastard’s voice that he knew exactly what Stiles wasn’t saying.  But whatever.  After all the assumptions he’d made, he had a feeling Derek was going to be force-feeding him crow on a pretty regular basis for, like, ever.  He might as well get used to it.

The Sheriff liked the plan, too, and Stiles had the decency not to take credit for it, which, given the circumstances, Stiles thought was very big of him.  There were also a couple semi-retired detectives who were more than enthusiastic about joining them.  They knew what was going on, retired or not, (the Brotherhood of Blue being worse than a sewing circle when it came to the gossip) and couldn’t get out there fast enough.

The story Stiles and his dad came up with was that the Sheriff had located his son and was hoping that bonding time without distractions would help with whatever crisis he was facing, but when the news about the charges came up, Stiles returned to town to clear his name and answer questions.  The rest would be just as Derek suggested, the Sheriff staying out of town as a bid for impartiality and his friends keeping him company so that someone could testify to the fact that he was staying out of it.

By then, Stiles could tell that his dad figured there was more shit going on than talking, but he also knew what plausible deniability was, so he kept his mouth shut and the suspicious glares to the bare minimum.  Stiles really, really appreciated that.

After that, there was nothing left to do but eat delicious fresh-caught fish and wait for backup to arrive.  The two of them seemed to have arrived at an unspoken agreement about what _not_ to talk about, so it was actually pretty fun catching up with his dad.  It was the kind of easy company with his dad that he hadn’t had in a very, very long time, and that led him to realize that in his desperate attempts to hold some things back, he’d ended up holding _everything_ back.

He wished he had the words to properly apologize for that, but from the looks on his dad’s face every time Stiles laughed or even smiled, he figured maybe just cutting that bullshit out was apology enough for his dad.

The men arrived and Stiles hit the road in what seemed like no time.  Although they were given privacy while the Sheriff walked Stiles out to the car, they still didn’t talk, just held each other in a hug for a long, long time.

Stiles tried hard to ignore the half-broken sound in his dad’s voice when he sent him off with nothing more than “Be careful.”


	48. not the pizza guy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Stiles hadn’t even gotten halfway to Beacon Hills before he knew, just flat-out knew that something had gone wrong._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a little bit of bloody ickiness towards the end. Is that enough of a warning?

Stiles hadn’t even gotten halfway to Beacon Hills before he knew, just flat-out _knew_ that something had gone wrong.  It wasn’t because of overt magic or psychic abilities; knowing when the shit had hit the fan was a skill he’d had his whole life.  Of course, honing his skills helped him differentiate between moments of paranoia and insecurity and moments like the one that hit him like a walrus sitting on his chest as he was driving.  He tried his hardest to follow the speed limits and stay out of police notice, but he was pretty sure he made it into town in record time.

He couldn’t find Derek anywhere.

He couldn’t even get a tracking spell to work, and that was just downright weird, given that even corpses let out a resonant frequency.  Peter wasn’t adept enough to be able to hide Derek from Stiles, so it wasn’t his work either.  Derek was just... gone.

And Stiles?  Stiles was freaked the fuck out.

So he looked.  He looked everywhere, Derek’s loft, the burned-down hunter playground that had become of the Hale mansion, the preserve, (well, maybe not every corner of it, but at least every parking lot for the Camaro and every trail-head for fresh residual traces of him), the shop where he worked overhire in exchange for shop-time with his car, all three of the diners he ate at – and nothing, not a trace.

He finished his search at the train depot and was not in the least bit surprised to be met at the door by Isaac.  The place had become an ideal all-weather werewolf training ground and was, no doubt, the best option for a pack den when all the pack members were minors with parents and legal guardians who appreciated their homes in one piece.

Isaac was, on the other hand, very surprised to see Stiles.  “Stiles.  You’re not the pizza guy...”

Most likely it was the first thing that had come to mind.  Stiles smiled tightly and shook his head.  “Yeah, no.  Sorry, no pizza.  Can I–”

They were interrupted by Scott pushing Isaac back inside and closing the door behind himself.  He stood in front of the door with his arms crossed, jaw working fast and tight.  Stiles ducked his head in a small nod and tried to smile sheepishly.  It was not well received.

“What the fuck do you want, Stiles?”

Okay, so he figured Scott would be mad at him, but he wasn’t expecting the Sourwolf Junior act.  Maybe the extra-touchy-butthurt thing was some sort of Alpha side-effect.  But whatever it was, he had about as much patience for that crap as he had ever had, which was to say, none at all, and Scott also had the misfortune of not turning Stiles on with his bitchiness the way that some other Alpha he could mention did.

“You’re pissed.  I get that.  I can also understand why you’re pissed, but can we set that aside for just a little while?  There’s some serious shit going on and I need your help.”

Scott gave a half-shrug, clearly completely unconvinced.  “So?  Talk.”

Stiles took a deep breath and forged ahead, “It’s Derek.  I can’t find him.  I just talked to him a little while ago and now I can’t find him anywhere.  I think he’s in trouble, I think Peter–”

Scott interrupted Stiles with a hissed exhale and a full-body eyeroll.  “What, again with this _Peter is evil_ bullshit?”

Stiles shook his head, trying hard not to lose his shit.  “It’s not bull–”

But Scott was ready for it.  “You shot his arm off and ran away and he _still_ hasn’t laid a finger on any of us, Stiles.  What part of that doesn’t look like some bullshit paranoid excuse–”

Stiles could feel his breath getting short with frustration, “No, Scott, it’s _not_.  If you’d just _listen_ –”

And Scott interrupted with a snort again.  “Oh, what, like I listened every time you said _It’ll be fun, Scott, trust me_?  Like I listened when you said it’d be fun to go look for half a dead body in the woods?”

Stiles just deflated, the wind knocked out of his sails completely.  “Jesus.  This again?”  Probably not the best thing to say.

It definitely pissed Scott off, at any rate.  “Yeah, _this again_ , Stiles.  Why the fuck should I trust you with anything?”

Okay, so that was taking it just a little too far.  “ _What_?  Why should you trust me?  Maybe because I’m your bes–”

“YOU LEFT US, Stiles.”  And he had no doubt _that_ could have been heard a good few blocks away.  Scott pulled himself back from the brink, his eyes flashing red but not staying that way.  “That’s all you are.  You’re the guy who left.”

Stiles knew that tone.  He’d heard it before, and almost exactly the same words, shouted into the phone while his mom sat crying in the other room on those odd moments when Scott’s dad materialized out of thin air and tried to worm his way back into their lives.  He’d never thought he’d hear that aimed in his direction, and it surprised him with how much it hurt.

Scott turned before Stiles could see the tears he knew were there.  He slammed the door behind himself and locked the bolt for good measure, probably just to make a point.  Not like Stiles was about to walk into a room full of pissed off werewolves.  He just backed away and slammed back into his car, driving a few miles before finally pulling over and letting his own tears pour out with a large gasping sob.

He had a feeling Scott would come around eventually, that he wouldn’t stay this pissed forever, but it still stung like a bitch.  It wasn’t like he blamed the guy, either.  Stiles _had_ left, had chased Allison off as well, had basically abandoned him completely, and even if his reasons were sound, the fact that Scott had been collateral damage wasn’t something Stiles was of a mind to ignore.

Stiles had a nagging suspicion, too, that even if Scott did forgive him, he would probably never trust Stiles completely ever again.

Some things just never grew back.

 

Stiles headed to his darkened house and up the porch steps, feeling heavy and despondent and just a bit lost, incapable of bringing back that sense of urgency that had been eating at him, giving up the ghost for the night.  He was thinking of nothing but the comfort of a hot shower and a real bed when his seeker-spell sprang to life the minute he set foot on to his porch with such a vengeance that he nearly face-planted his way up.

He heard a soft shuffle on the corner of his porch and finally _got_ it.  Derek was on his property.  Had been, most likely, the whole time.  _That_ was why he couldn’t find him, Stiles had the place cloaked to hell and back, the place was fucking dead space and Derek had been hiding in it the whole time.

Although, on second glance, _hiding_ wasn’t exactly the word he’d use.  Derek was a mess.  He’d been shot somewhere in his torso, his shirt was tattered and covered in blood and he was huddled around himself, completely non-verbal.  There was a note pinned to his neck.

Not pinned to the collar of his shirt.  Pinned _to his neck_ like some uber-punk body modification, and it was a testament to how far gone he was that he only whimpered when Stiles had to rip the wound open again to get it off.

The print was neat, a handwritten version of copperplate.  His blood ran cold as he read it, even while his heart started hammering and his hands made the edges shake a little.

 

_Found those bullets you were looking for._

_Let’s try this again, shall we?_

_– P._

 

Stiles didn’t want to be defeatist.  He was a firm believer that the better part of victory hid in your state of mind, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was heading to his own execution as he half-carried Derek to the car and drove back to the park where everything had started.

But who was he going to kid?  If it meant that Derek would live, he was willing to admit that Peter had already won.  After all, that had been the point all along, hadn’t it?


	49. swallowed down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It occurred to Stiles that maybe this had been a stupid move._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's getting ugly, kids

Stiles stood, arms crossed and stance wide, making of himself the firmest barricade he could between Peter and Derek, who was still incoherent and mumbling in the car.  Peter was nothing but cocky, standing twenty feet away, gun in his hand held casually.

“You might want to be getting him out of there soon.  The wolfsbane I shot him with may be slow-acting, but it’s still deadly and you took your sweet time getting here.”

Slow acting?  Stiles would ask how long it had been, but by the looks of things the fucker had probably shot Derek the minute he knew Stiles was on his way, however it was that he knew.  There were a lot of things Stiles wanted to ask, but most of them he could probably figure out, and the rest were details that, in the end, didn’t matter.  

Peter was untraceable when he wanted to be, invisible, leaving his stalkers chasing their own tails while he doubled back and brought them down as if he was their own shadows come to life.  He never taught any of them all his tricks.  Stiles was pretty certain he didn’t teach Derek _any_ tricks, comfortable hanging back, silent second fiddle unless outright asked, and, well, Derek never asked.  Stiles knew Peter had only ever taught _him_ enough for him to hurt himself with.  Foregone conclusion.  They’d never liked each other, their relationship cemented the day Stiles turned down his bite.

So he swallowed down all those other questions, raised his shoulders and his eyebrows instead.  “What do you want from me, Peter?”

The answering sneer was enough to make Stiles’ teeth hurt, but he didn’t let it show.  “Nice of you to ask, Stiles.  Very considerate.  But I think we should maybe start with asking what _you_ want.  Do you want Derek dead?  Because if that’s not what you want then I suggest you start doing what I tell you to.  Or is there some other way you need me to clarify – he is _dying_ , Stiles, as we speak.  So _get him out of the car_.”

Wonderful.  Step-by-step instructions it was going to be, then, just to keep him on edge.  But Peter was right, he could hear Derek wheezing, even from behind the closed car door, and when he turned to look, there was black ichor dripping from between his lips.  _That_ got him moving much faster than Peter’s bullshit did.  He opened the door and struggled, finally half-rising, stooped under Derek’s weight as he lifted him in a fireman’s carry over his shoulders. 

Peter signaled with the gun he was holding.  “Put him over there.”

_Over there_ was a bike rack cemented into a concrete slab, chains and manacles already placed usefully nearby.  Stiles raised an eyebrow at Peter once he had Derek slumped against it.  Not like he was going to go far in the state he was in.

Peter looked at Stiles as if to ask what kind of an idiot he was.  “Chain him up.  And do it carefully, because if he manages to get free before I’m done with you, I _will_ put another bullet in him, and believe me, that one _will_ kill him.”

Stiles started in with the chains, grateful for something to hide the way his hands were starting to shake.  “ _Done_ with me?”  

He wasn’t exactly expecting an answer.  Didn’t get one, either.  

Not looking up, chaining Derek to the bike rack diligently, carefully, making sure it wouldn’t hurt him but that he wouldn’t be able to break free, either, Stiles felt weak.  He felt weaker than he had in years, felt as weak as the day his mom finally said goodbye and asked him to let her go.

Sure, he had all kinds of skills and hundreds of tricks, but Peter knew them all.  And Peter knew his weaknesses, too.  Even this new _thing_ that he’d become, that he could feel burning inside of him like a coal-mine fire, even that couldn’t help him against Peter, because _what Stiles wanted_ was for Derek to live, to be well, and to be free of all the hell he’d been trying to survive through.  What the beast inside of him knew how to do was kill, and killing Peter wasn’t, at the moment, going to do Derek any good.

Stiles caught Derek looking at him in a daze, confused and feverish, a question in his scrunched up eyebrows and the way he tried to lift a manacled hand.  Heard him whisper something about crying, right before Stiles stood and turned, wiping at his face with his sleeves.

“But this is it, right?  After this, you leave him alone?”  Because he was reduced to begging, or something near enough to that.  Reduced to asking for promises he knew full well he’d probably not be around to see kept or broken.

And of course, the arrogant fucking bastard had the balls to smile magnanimously.  “Yes, Stiles.  I promise.  And who knows, maybe if you’re very lucky, you’ll live to witness me keeping that promise.”

_Very lucky_.  Was that supposed to be a carrot?  Did Peter think he would grasp at any straw he gave?  Stiles knew full well what it was like to wish that he was dead, to hurt so bad he would have begged to die if he had had the wherewithal to make words.  The possibility of surviving this day was little more than cold comfort.

Peter kicked a bag over to Stiles.  It had a syringe cradled in it, full of a liquid that looked like ink.  “That’s the antidote.  You’ll have to inject it.  This strain of Mr Argent’s is fascinating, Stiles, you’d appreciate it.  Just as deadly as any other.  Instantly incapacitating, too, as you can see.  But after that, it’s very slow moving, so that the poison is spread throughout the body before the werewolf dies.  I could pump my nephew full of adrenaline right now and he could tell us exactly how much it hurts, feeling it pulsing through his veins.  He’d probably tell me anything I wanted to hear to stop the pain.  Useful trick for a hunter, don’t you think?”

Stiles didn’t bother with an answer, just tied Derek’s arm off with the leather strap attached to his claw knife and flicked Derek's inner arm like the practiced junky Lucas trained him to be, shooting him up with fluid efficiency, loosening the strap but leaving the claw with Derek for safekeeping, tucking it between his arm and his ribs.  Not that Derek would be able to do anything with it, the man was wrapped up with enough steel chain that he could hardly move, even through the throes of running the wolfsbane out of his system.  Just that he’d much rather leave his knife there than let Peter get his hands on it.

Didn’t look like Peter even noticed.  He was way too fascinated with the way Derek was thrashing and groaning through his teeth like he was being electrocuted.  Stiles had half a mind to remind the man the he wasn’t watching porn, he was watching his nephew being tortured, but then Peter might see it as an opportunity to show Stiles the difference between what Derek was going through and what torture really was, and Stiles guessed he probably already had more than enough of that coming to him in the near future.

When Derek stopped he looked about as bad off as Stiles had ever seen him but was breathing much more evenly.  His eyes were bloodshot but lucid as he looked down at himself and tested the chains holding him down.

“Hello, there, Nephew.”

Fuck Peter.  Fuck him and his chipper bullshit, fuck him and all his games.  Stiles would have given the world to lay a finger on the bastard, but Peter was too far away and _his_ finger was tight on the trigger, little laser dot floating from kill point to kill point on Derek’s front, like he was daring Stiles to make a move.  Even on his best of days, he doubted he could have dropped a person fast enough for them not to get a shot off if they were of a mind to, let alone a werewolf, let alone _this_ werewolf.

Dazed and drained as he was, Derek couldn’t quite figure out what was going on.  His eyes couldn’t stay still, tracking to Peter, then Stiles, then following the moving dot of light on his chest like he couldn’t decide which was most important.  Stiles finally caught his attention with a half-whispered noise, had to clear his throat to talk.

“Hey.  You okay?”

Derek looked back at him, still confused.  “Stiles.  What–?”

“Oh, don’t worry, it’ll all make sense soon enough.”  Like Peter just couldn’t _stand_ not to be the focus.  “Stiles.  Your turn.”

He motioned to a picnic table not more than a few feet away that Stiles hadn’t even noticed.  He wished he had.  He wished Derek didn’t have to hear the way his heart tripped over itself when he realized the thing had been set up like a bondage table or a medieval rack, then tripped over itself _again_ , beating so hard he started to pant when he noticed the runes that had been burned into its wooden surface.

Binding runes.  Likely not very potent, but when you’re manacled on to it hand and foot, likely more than strong enough to keep Stiles from using any magic to get free, or say, make Peter choke on his own blood as soon as he put down the fucking gun.  Stiles shuddered at the sight, his vision tunneling for a second as he heard Derek waking up to his surroundings.

“Peter, what the fuck are you doing?  Stiles... Stiles, stop.  Don’t do this.  Just... You don’t have to–”

“On the contrary, Derek.  He does.  He just couldn’t _live_ with himself if he let me kill you, could you, Stiles?”

Peter’s voice was lilting, the sort of seductive thing that had the power to slip past Stiles’ panic, to get him moving towards the table with a slow nod. 

It got Derek shouting.  “For fuck’s sake, Stiles!  Just look at me for a second!”

Stiles did.  He stopped and looked right into Derek’s eyes, even if it hurt like a knife to his gut.  He wondered for a second if this had been, in some small way, how his mom had felt.  “Derek.  Let me... Just... Look, it’s my choice.  Okay?  Just let me...”

Derek had tears running tracks down his face, and he couldn’t stop shaking his head slowly from side to side, not saying no to Stiles, just trying to deny everything, but there must have been something in Stiles’ eyes, because he stopped yelling after that.

Peter could not have looked more satisfied as Stiles climbed on to the table, cuffing his own ankles, feeling the dull ache of the runes already working.  He tried to shut Peter out, not to listen to the speech he knew was coming, but he was tracking everything around him with absolute clarity and knew he wasn’t going to miss a word.

“It’s kind of poetic, if you think about it, isn’t it?  I really meant it when I said I was done with trying to exact revenge on you, Derek.  Stiles, on the other hand? I never said I was done with him.  He has a lot yet to answer for.  But then, when I realized I could make you _watch_ , it seemed beyond perfect, as if it was _meant_ to be, two lessons taught, not a drop of blood or moment wasted.”

Stiles had lain down, reaching over to latch one wrist down, catching Derek’s eyes entirely accidentally as he worked.  Derek looked so young and lost that Stiles could picture the kid he had been, the way he must have looked when he found out about his family’s death, when he put it all together and the truth of things hit home.

It occurred to Stiles that maybe this had been a stupid move.


	50. bloody teeth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I don’t want your life, Stiles. I don’t even want your arm. I just want my pound of flesh, so to speak..."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one will hurt, kids.  
> warnings for blood, gore and pain.

It was ridiculously late to contemplate it, but maybe putting Derek through this was worse than letting him die from the bullet that had worked its way out of his body and was laying at his feet. Then again, if Derek had gotten past loosing his family, he’d have to learn how to get past this moment as well.  And yeah, no matter what, if he could keep the man alive by giving in to Peter’s whims, that was exactly what Stiles was going to do.

He just.  He just wanted to hold Derek.  He wanted to hide in his arms like a little kid.  He didn’t want to hurt anymore.  He wanted to... Oh, fuck, he just wanted everything, anything, just as long as it wasn’t this, just as long as it wasn’t the two of them hurting and hopeless and not even able to dry each other’s tears –

“Oh, it’s all really so very touching.  My heart weeps for the two of you, it really does.”

Stiles had jumped when he heard Peter’s voice, much closer than it had been.  He jumped again when Peter took hold of his last wrist and latched it down so that Stiles lay spread-eagle on  the picnic table.  He gained enough control of himself that he didn’t jump when Peter ripped his shirt open, but he couldn’t help going rigid when Peter ran a finger over one of the Fae markings.  It didn’t hurt the way it had when the Drow had touched it, but he couldn’t tamp down the massive wave of fear that slid over him as the act brought back that little moment of hell.

When Peter looked him in the eyes, his face was calm and miles away.  “I don’t want your life, Stiles.  I don’t even want your arm.  I just want my pound of flesh, so to speak.  Or, to be more precise, _these_ bits of skin, along with all the flesh that they’ve cleaved to below them.”

Stiles wanted to squirm, wanted to move his way out from under Peter’s touch, but he couldn’t move anything below his neck anymore.  It felt like his whole body was tied tight to the table.  Probably had something to do with the runes under him that he could feel like the dull tingle of a machine close to shorting out.

He grit his teeth and tried not to slam his head back on the table.  Peter just kept running his fingers over and around them.  Dull as they were, Stiles could still feel enough that it made him want to scream.  “It’s not like... _fuck_... it’s not like they work anymore or anything... Jesus, _please_ , just stop _touching me_.”

Peter finally snapped out of whatever little blissful moment it was he was having, lifting his finger off like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.  “Hm?  Well, no, they may not be what they once were, but even as they are, they’re still worth a hell of a lot in certain markets.  Maybe even enough to get myself an arm back.  Or a semblance of a limb, at any rate, and not one of those crap-assed prosthetic monstrosities you _people_ make.”  He looked back into Stiles’ eyes.  “That’s an even trade, don’t you think?  And like I said, if you’re lucky, the little things haven’t dug in too deep and it won’t kill you to have them taken out.”

“Dug in?”  Stiles seriously did not like the sound of that.

But Peter was already too distracted to give an answer.  “These things are _alive_ , Stiles.  Not in the strict definition of the word, but they _do_ grow.  Eventually, there would be tendrils spreading all over your whole body.  But don’t worry, that would have taken years.”

After that little tidbit, Stiles had half a mind to scream at Peter to take them out.  Up until the point he saw Peter holding a boning knife, still smiling like a maniac.  “I _am_ going to have to dig a little, though,”  and after a theatrical sigh that left no doubt in Stiles’ mind just how much he was getting out of the moment,  “Imagine how much easier this would have been if I had two hands.  I’m afraid this could get a bit messy.”

Stiles had been cut before.  He’d been slashed at, he’d been ripped open, he’d bled in just about any way a person could imagine bleeding, but none of it felt quite like having Peter carving out his chest like he was getting the meat out of a grapefruit.

He had no way to catalogue the noises he was making, and his own body was pumping him so full of chemicals that he didn’t really know what he was saying, but none of it affected Peter.  He was taking his time, digging under the marking with small strokes, knife buried deep enough that he had to work around the bone.

What was worse was that Stiles could feel it, sometimes, he could feel it when Peter hit up against something that must have been a tendril or something because the knife would grate as if it hit a cable and he could feel a pull that burned, that spasmed straight into his heart and left him mute and breathless with sharp agony.

He lost his voice before the bastard had gotten even halfway through, the signals his nerves were sending blurring into a white noise but the feeling when he hit those tendrils stayed as sharp and fresh as they did the first time.

He was begging silently, bloody foam coating his teeth and spattering as he moved his lips, even though he had no idea what he was saying, maybe just _no, no, no_ and _please_ by the time Peter set his knife down for the first time.

By then it was as though Peter had entirely forgotten there was even a living thing beneath him.  He was talking softly to himself, the way his dad did when he was weeding or stuffing a turkey.  He didn’t look at Stiles' face at all as he murmured.  “There, now.  Let’s see if it’s ready.”

Then he dug his fingers in around the chunk of flesh he’d cut out and he pulled.

Stiles found his voice again as his chest rose a few inches from the table and the runes tugged down, but the thing didn’t come loose.  Stiles got a look at it, though.  The underside of the marking did look like a living thing, like a root-ball, a black twisty mass, cone shaped, with some tap-roots obviously dug deep into his chest.

Then Peter let go and Stiles slammed onto the table.  He picked up the knife again, muttering something about cutting deeper, Derek sobbed something high and desperate, and Stiles, desperately thankful, blacked out.

 

Well, he didn’t exactly black out, because he was still there, stuck on the table, he could see himself, he just wasn’t _attached_ to himself any more.  He wasn’t unconscious either, or, at least his body wasn’t, he was still grimacing, begging and writhing as much as he could, but it wasn’t him, not exactly, not anymore.

He couldn’t hear anything, either, which he was pretty grateful for.  The silence was so thick that he was startled when he heard a voice.

“You still haven’t learned, have you?”

It was the Drow, the one he’d killed – or rather, the one Bishop had killed, sitting on the roof of the rental car, spooling and unspooling a red string around his finger.  It seemed fitting that he should be having out-of-body hallucinations and metaphorical visitations, and he guessed he could figure why it would be this guy.  He didn’t really care, though, about symbols or significance.  The only thing that mattered was that this moment was a distraction from the rest.

Stiles cleared his throat, startled by the sound of his own voice as well, surprised he still had one, even if it was dried out and scratchy.  “What, that sharp pointy objects sunk into my skin hurt?”

Stiles couldn’t help feeling as removed from this conversation as he did from his body, even though in some way he could still feel the burning agony, the sharp pain of Peter alternately cutting and tugging while Derek sobbed like a child but didn’t look away.

The Drow laughed a little, as if the snark actually did amuse him.  “No.  That it was a gift, what I was giving you.”

Stiles snorted, “What, pain?  Sorry, not my kink.”

The Drow rolled his eyes.  It was impressive, he almost did it as well as Derek could.  “No, child.  Not the pain.  What comes later.  The death of pain.”  He pinned Stiles with a glare.  “Death.  Death is a gift.  I was prepared to give it to you then, and I am prepared to give it now, if you should so desire it.”

Stiles couldn’t help but sneer in response.  “What, like Bishop gave it to you?”

But the Drow’s response was calm and serious.  “Yes, very much like that.”  He held Stiles’ gaze for a second before he kept talking.  “You have become... a very hard thing to kill, young one, much like us in that regard.  You know as well as I do that life has much in the way of pain and sorrow to offer.  An end to suffering _is_ a gift.  Your friend gave me that gift.  You had been willing to offer it to me, more than once.  It was far more than Fiern would have given me, had things gone as he planned.  So, I offer it to you now, freely, as a choice.”

Well.  That turned a fuckload of things around in his head.  And Stiles guessed, maybe that right there was his own answer.  He didn’t want to climb back into that body, he didn’t want to face that reality again, he’d give _so much_ up not to have to.  But he wasn’t _done_ yet.  There were so many things he didn’t know about, so much of the world he hadn’t seen, and so much of it he wanted to see again that maybe it was worth it – maybe all the pain and sorrow he’d been promised was worth sticking around for, god knew why, but maybe it was, and the fact that he didn’t have an answer to that meant he wasn’t done.

He looked back at the Drow who sat now, waiting, hands still.  Shook his head softly.  “I.. that is.. No.  Thank you, but I’m not ready yet.”

The Drow’s white teeth stood out in stark contrast to his ink-black face when he grinned, something sharp and viciously happy in his eyes.  “Brave lad, you are.  I give you my people’s blessing: _May you always have the choice_.  Likely my brother will be around soon.  He always hates it when others mess with is handiwork.”

He dropped the string he’d been playing with and Stiles slammed back into his body right as he slammed back down on the table, first mark finally having snapped free.  The pain wasn’t as sharp anymore, but it felt odd, hollow.  It also felt like he’d had a chunk of flesh ripped out of his chest.  His nerves were singing with it, and all he wanted was to curl up into a ball and... well, not die, exactly, but...

Not that it mattered.  He couldn’t move except to turn his head.  He still wasn’t sure exactly what just happened, but he was going to hedge his bets and count on getting out of this, one way or another.  So when he turned, he looked at Derek and did the only thing he could think of before Peter started digging at him and he couldn’t think again. 

He smiled with bloody teeth and winked.

Derek looked at him like he was an idiot.

Solid ground, that.  Even under a pool of his own blood.

The world went white right after Peter started digging his knife in again.  He heard Peter cuss and clatter, heard the gun go off and the yip of a dog dying in chains and footsteps running off.  Peter's footsteps.  He knew them well enough to be sure.

He couldn’t help but think, as his heart broke into a thousand brittle bits, that he should have listened when the Drow had mentioned sorrow.


	51. knots and other bindings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“It’s okay. Listen, it’s okay. Nobody gets to die today."_

“Stiles?  Stiles, c’mon man, wake up.  Don’t make me have to bite you again.”

What the fuck?  Stiles cracked his eyes open.  “Bishop?  You look diffrn’t...”  He did.  There was the eye-patch, for one.  And silver at the temples where his hair showed under a ridiculously wide brimmed hat.  

But his crooked smile was the same.  “It’s been a while.”

Stiles blinked again in confusion, “Weeks.  Been weeks.  Maybe months?”

The smile turned into a shrug.  “Yeah, well, you know... Time works different over there.”

That got Stiles thinking of the Fae, which got him thinking of the Drow and brought back everything that had just happened, which woke him up, finally, enough that he was slammed with a wall of pain so hard it made it hard to think again.  Not any _new_ pain, though, so that was good.  Maybe it was over?  He remembered the sound of Peter running away.  And he remembered the gunshot.  _That_ got him trying to make words in a startled panic, trying to look around, but his view was blocked and he was still stuck to the table.

Bishop wrapped his hands around Stiles’ face, holding him completely still, making him listen.  “It’s okay.  Listen, it’s _okay._   _Nobody_ gets to die today.  Guessing your friend is the one in chains, right?  He’s going to make it out of this one, just calm the fuck down, all right?”

“Nobody?”  Somehow, that seemed important, but a new wave of pain washed him clean of every thought.

Bishop grinned another tight grin.  “Yeah, _nobody_.  That means–”

He stopped short, interrupted by another figure walking into Stiles’ line of sight.  And Stiles, even half-dead, would recognize that green-haired bastard anywhere.

“You.  Should’a guessed you’d be here.  Always seem to be around when I’m hemorrhaging...”  Stiles couldn’t work up the energy to be pissed, though.  

Fiern smiled about the same way he always did.  “It’s not your blood I’m concerned with.  It’s my _work_ that has once again been _tampered with_.”

Stiles remembered the Drow, saying something about his brother’s handiwork, and then took in Fiern glowering at Stiles’ chest.  It came together seamlessly, even if it didn’t fit anything he thought he knew.

“ _Your brother_?”  It slipped out in a whisper that he couldn’t help.

Fiern’s eyes flashed angry for a second before he pretended nothing had been said, as he prodded Stile’s open wounds with a look of distaste.  He waited pointedly for Stiles to stop screaming before he spoke.

“They were always more than beacons, mage.  If left alone they would have grown into quite powerful talismans.  Now, one is gone and the other ruined.  I will build them again, but I will require a boon from you in exchange.”

 _Now_ Stiles could remember his anger.  Nothing like paying a Fae for a favor he didn’t want in the first place to get his blood boiling.  “Assuming I don’t have a choice?”

Fiern’s smile was almost fond.  “ _Now_ you’re catching on.”

He glanced at Bishop, but the man had nothing to offer, just a blank stare into some middle distance.  Stiles was pretty sure, though, that he was doing _something_ with his hands to keep Stile’s pain at least a little bit at bay.  Didn't mean he was going to be a damned bit helpful with this conversation.  Hell, he was probably half-Fae himself by now, judging by the looks of him.  He was wearing a _cloak_ for fuck’s sake.  Sure, it looked more like a blanket pinned at one shoulder than anything fancy, but come on...

Fiern cleared his throat, knowing Stiles was stalling, and Stiles finally looked back at him.  “Okay, fine, Your-fucking-Lordliness.  What is it that you require of me so that I can be bestowed your ever-so-fucking-wonderous bounty?”

Well, at least he bastard smirked instead of having a hissy-fit and stomping off, leaving Stiles fucked and bleeding.  To death.  “You can, young and brave warrior, bring to me the man or creature who did this to you.”

Wait.  That was a favor?  Of all the most asinine and convoluted ways of helping a guy out.  Couldn’t just say, here, I’ve been fucking with you and I kind of feel bad about it, so let me heal you so you can go get even?  Of course not. This was exactly why he couldn’t stand these fucking creatures – can’t be seen giving anyone anything or asking for help, noooooo, that would just be way too fucking simple.

Stiles took a small breath and then thought better of anything else he might have said.  “Okay, fine.  You know what?  Yes.  Yes, I will grant you this boon, I will go after Peter and bring him to you if I can.  But I’m not going to promise anything.  He might get run over or fall off a cliff before I get to him.  But if it is within my power, I’ll hand him over to you.”

Fiern actually looked to be mulling it over.  Stiles clamped his jaw before something like _Really?!?_ fell out inadvertently before the bastard finally nodded and replied.  “Good.  I accept.”

Bishop was huffing with laughter the minute Fiern walked away.  Stiles raised an eyebrow at him.  “How can you even _get_ these guys?”

He sobered a little at the thought, shrugged with his answer.  “I’ve lived with worse.”

They were interrupted by another Fae, nodding at both of them.  “Ready, Sir?”

Bishop nodded tightly, letting go of Stiles shoulders and oh, holy hell, yeah, there was that pain again.  Just two spots on his body, but they took over his whole mind.  He watched, tight mouthed and biting down on a scream, as the Fae cut Bishop’s arms open on the fleshy parts of his forearms.  Bishop gave a high little sigh of a laugh at the cuts, hissing, but then recovered his composure, holding the dripping wounds over Stiles’ chest.  The blood felt warm.  It filled and soothed in a way he didn’t think it should, and for the first time in a while, Stiles could feel himself taking a deep breath.

“Better?”  Bishop sounded a little breathy.

“Yeah.  Yeah, thanks.”  Is that what you said when somebody was bleeding on you?  He had no idea.

Bishop gave him another crooked grin.  “Back to what I was saying, though.  I saw what you did to Sam.  Or, at least, what was left of him.”

His voice light and casual, but Stiles could feel a heavy breath behind it.  “Yeah?”

Bishop cleared his throat.  “Yeah.  So, ah... thanks.”

Stiles gave a grin to match Bishop’s.  “Gotten hard to say, has it?  Might want to think about the company you’re keeping.”

Bishop snorted in reply.  “Oh, you’re one to talk.”

Well, okay.  He had a point.  Stiles was saved from eating crow, though, by someone ripping the remainder of the second mark out of his flesh with some sort of tool.  It made the process much more simple, would have been nice if Peter had gotten his hands on one of those.  Even if he process wasn't much less painful, it would have at least been over quicker.  The coup de grace was Fiern pouring something white hot and molten right into his open wounds.  

There was more pain, more silent screaming as Bishop held his head down and kept him from giving himself a concussion, and Stiles was sure it would have made it into the books as The Worst It Had Ever Been, but he’d stepped outside of himself again.

This time, the Drow was standing next to him as they watched.

“Your brother, huh?”

“Yes.  That he is.”  And after a pause, he added, “Ours is a complicated story.”

Stiles coughed out a small laugh.  “Oh, I’m sure it is.”  

It was good, to be in a place so quiet while his body just kept screaming.

The Drow continued as the marks cooled and Fiern stopped shouting incantations.  “They should take better this time.  His vision is much less clouded now.”

That just made Stiles snort.  “Oh, and I’m sure this magnanimous boon isn’t in some way going to come in handy for him at all, is it?”

The Drow laughed as well.  “Oh, not at all.  Just as likely as this is the last you’ll be seeing of him.”

“What about you?  This the last I’ll see of you?”

At that, the Drow’s smile got downright carnivorous.  “What, and miss all the fun?  After all, I still owe you a favor, remember?”

Oh, yeah.

How could he forget?

Things were calm by the time he slipped back into the waking world.  Bishop was bandaging his cuts and all of Stiles’ pain was subsiding into the healing of third-degree burns.  Stiles had a minute to really look at the guy.

“What happened to your eye?” 

Bishop looked up in surprise.  “That?  Oh, I got an upgrade.”  Lifting the patch, he opened his eyes wide.  Where his eyeball should have been Stiles could see a sphere of some sort, but it was dark and shadowy and looked as if it held a galaxy inside of it.

Something about the way Bishop covered it over again and looked around surreptitiously had Stiles thinking he shouldn’t pry.  But it wasn’t the only altered body part he had.

“What about your finger?”  He was missing his left pinky.  The wound looked to be relatively recent, too, covered in gauze and leather.

Bishop gave him another smile.  “Didn’t really need it.  It was worth the trade.”

He was called away, and Stiles had the distinct impression he was more than happy to have been interrupted.  It took him a moment, but then Stiles finally realized that he could move again.  The whole table had been charred from whatever magic had happened, and the locks on all the shackles had busted open.

He was examining one of the padlocks when Fiern came to his side again, helping him sit up gingerly.  His voice was quiet, and he seemed less a Lord than any time Stiles had ever seen him.  Everyone else around them was distracted, busy getting ready to leave, or maybe making themselves busy to give them a sense of privacy, who the fuck knew with these convoluted bastards.  He pulled the lock out of Stiles hands.  

“Locks should prove ineffective means of keeping you trapped, from here on out.  As will knots and other bindings.”

“Seriously?  Wow.  Cool.”  It was, really.  He wondered how many other small surprises were in store for him in the near future.  “Thanks,”  he added belatedly.  Very, very quietly.

The Fae Lord sniffed in response.  “Don’t thank me.  Thank your friend with the missing digit over there.”

Stiles looked up just in time to see Bishop turn and wave before slipping off into a beam of rising sun that had just broken free over the horizon.  

Fiern was the last to go, leaving Stiles bathed in sunlight and aching like he’d just been burned alive and brought back from the edge.  Which, he guessed, was just about the shape of things.

A growl and whimper brought him back to the present.  To Derek, who had been hidden from his view and, no doubt, from his mind while the Fae were milling around, ever jealous for attention.  

Bishop had told the truth.  Nobody died, although the werewolf looked to have suffered for it.  And Stiles had to call him werewolf at the moment, because from the clouded and pained look it its gold gleaming eyes, that was the only part of him still clinging to awareness.

Derek let him near, though.  Tucked his furred and fanged head into Stiles’ neck and shoulder as soon as he was close enough.  Held Stiles, shivering and whining quietly as the chains that had bound him slipped off at Stiles’ touch.


	52. a matter of perception

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _They shared the same smile, sharp and full of teeth, hot for the chase._

Never, ever let it be said that the Fae weren’t right bastards.  Whatever the fuck else they’d done to Stiles, good or ill, for whatever fucking reasons they might have had, they would never _not_ be bastards as far as he was concerned.

He could practically smell, or taste, or _something_ the spell that they’d fucked Derek with and it had his teeth on edge.  But he had to be careful, _so damned careful_ because while the wolf would know Stiles was pissed off, the wolf wasn’t going to bother to figure out why or at what, he was just going to react– flat out and full bore _react._  

So Stiles had to take a deep breath or twenty, work the chains off carefully, running his hand up and down the wolf’s back, trying not to loose his shit completely over the Chinese finger-trap spell his Fae buddies had temporarily lobotomized Derek with.  

It was an elegantly simple spell.  It just made its subject perceive themselves as trapped until they stopped panicking and calmed down enough to realize that they were not trapped.  And since it was a matter of perception, _trapped_ was going to look completely inescapable to whatever creature they cast it upon.

Nice enough trick, really, if you were dealing with someone who was capable of _not_ panicking while being subdued.  Bitch of a mindfuck when you did it to someone who had just been violently dragged out of a whole fucking fruit-flavored rainbow of torture and death.  Someone for whom whom being trapped promised nothing but pain and torment. 

No doubt, this moment was bringing up a lot of hell for Derek and his wolf wasn’t going to want to give an inch for a long time.  After all, he was weaker when he was a man.  There was even the possibility that Derek perceived himself as trapped in his wolf skin as well.

And Stiles wasn’t going to be a simple idiot enough to pretend the Fae didn’t know exactly what they were doing.  This was precisely how they operated.  They had no affection for creatures like werewolves.  And the thing was, _the thing was_ that they probably knew exactly how much this would piss Stiles off, too.  Probably figured they were adding a little fuel to his fire, which, damn them, was entirely true.

Derek was going to come down from this eventually.  Given enough empirical evidence, his wolf would, sooner or later, be unable to deny the fact that he was safe, that he could drop his guard, and after that it was a matter of a few clear-minded moments for Derek to come to the fore again.  But what Derek would be bringing with him when that happened, what happy moments of flashback PTSD trauma and torment the experience dredged up for him had yet to be determined and were not anything he deserved.

There was one other thing that Stiles was absolutely certain of.  Derek’s wolf was never going to perceive itself as safe as long as Peter was still on the loose.  After all, the man had just shot him.  Twice.  The second bullet was there on the ground, not far from where the first had landed.  Both were coated in blackened blood.  Stiles swiped them up quickly and pocketed them before he set both his hands on the werewolf’s shoulders.

It was careful work, prying the wolf off the bike rack without jarring him into a panicked swipe or nip, but it didn’t take too much effort for him to realize that, regardless of any and all other traps, he was free to move.  He was standing and shaking himself off hard, Stiles backing up with him, still touching lightly, keeping a hand on him, hoping it would help to keep him grounded.

The wolf gave Stiles a quick glance and then snuffled into Stiles’ throat once more before claiming his own personal space back, as if to reassure Stiles.  Well, in truth, Stiles couldn’t swear to know anything about Derek’s wolf might be trying to say.  Derek tended to keep that part of himself as private as possible, but for the sake of expediency, Stiles was going to go with his preconceived notions.  They were, after all, on a deadline.

Pun intended.

“Okay, boy.  You ready to play fetch?”

All right – that was definitely an eye-roll.  Really, the guy could probably be a disembodied apparition and still manage the eye-roll.  And if Stiles wasn’t wrong, there was a little fanged sneer in there, too, so maybe they were communicating just fine.  Still hard to say, regarding the things that really mattered, and it had Stiles a bit worried.  So he pulled the bullets back out of his pocket and held them under Derek’s nose.

“You get that we’re going after your uncle, right?  You understand that he has a gun?  That this time those bullets could kill you dead and leave you that way?”

The wolf was staring out into some middle distance, clawed hands flexing, lips pulled back in a quiet huffing snarl.  Stiles pulled his hand away, lest he be the victim of an unintended moment of werewolf self-expression, and hoped he’d gotten through.

“Yeah, so.  Guess I don’t need to tell you that I’m gonna need to some help on this one.  I didn’t even see what direction he left in.  Got a clue?”

Okay, now, seriously, is there a need for disdain?  Because the look he was getting now was a feat without eyebrows, but clear as day.  For fuck’s sake, it wasn’t as though Stiles was working in familiar territory.  He threw both hands up in the air and took a step back.

“Hey, I’m sorry man, but it’s not like I make it a habit to hang out when you’re all fang and no talk, Derek. I mean, the last time we did this you wanted to chew on me, so...”

As if to make it clear that he’d had just about all he could take of Stiles’ nonsense, Derek circled the picnic table and scented the air, catching the track he needed in almost no time.  He set off running across the flattened park ground, pausing at the tree line to howl.  Loudly.  It was a call that even the humans in the pack could identify, and it made chills run down Stiles’ spine, bringing memories up quick and hard.

A distant response made Stiles’ blood run cold for a second, realizing the implications of what had just happened.  Cussing fast, he dropped to the ground and rummaged around in Derek’s jacket where it lay still bundled with the chains and thanked all the gods of providence that his phone was still there and that it still had a charge.

Not even bothering to check, he hit the redial button, hoping for the best.  Breathed a huge sigh of relief when Isaac answered, already sounding slightly out of breath.

Stiles jumped in without a pause.  “Isaac, listen, don’t hang up–”

Isaac sounded as relieved as he did confused.  “Stiles, what the hell?  Was that Derek?  Why’s he calling a hunt?”

Stiles nodded at Derek where he stood at the edge of the trees, waiting and quite successfully conveying all of his exasperation at having to wait for slow and clumsy humans.  Stiles was starting to think maybe he liked him better when he had been trying to bite him, but he picked up his pace anyway.

“Look, I know there’s a Stiles embargo going on in your neck of the woods, but hear me out, ok?  That _was_ Derek, and he’s going after Peter.  Up to you guys if you’re going to join in, but just keep in mind, Peter has doped bullets and we don’t have and antidote for them, okay?  So, watch yourselves.  Don’t get shot and die, you hear me?”

Stiles didn’t wait for a response.  Werewolf etiquette was half-instinct and a whole lot of moon-chasing crazy, and Stiles wasn’t about to put pressure on whatever may or may not be going on between Derek and his old pack.  He’d be a liar, though, if he didn’t admit to feeling relief when he heard more howls respond to Derek as he finally dove into the bushes with Stiles close behind.

He didn’t even bother to pocket the phone, just dropped it as he leapt through the bushes and into the cool of the woods.  A small huff and something whizzing in his direction caught his attention, and before he consciously realized doing it, he’d caught something out of the air that Derek had thrown.

It was his claw blade.  And when he wrapped the leather straps around his grip, it felt like his whole world snapped into place.  

The moment was so familiar it felt like coming home, but at the same time it was completely different because this time he wasn’t following the tracks of wolves too far ahead to see.  This time, he was keeping up.  What should have been a jumble of sensory moments that added up to a controlled dive through bracken was a flight, as clear as a leisurely stroll.  He wasn’t even out of breath, although he was breathing strong and hard.  He could taste blood in the back of his throat, only this time it wasn’t his own.  It was the promise of blood not yet spilt, and it was his to claim.

Stiles would have thought maybe this was all the product of being pumped up with Fae juice, except he’d felt that enough times now to know it wasn’t.  It was something way more natural, something that felt like a part of him, like all the spells and all the energy he had poured into and through himself over the years reached some sort of a harmonic frequency until he just... could.

He could run as fast as Derek, process his surroundings with absolute clarity, _feel_ the tracks Peter had left like a heat signature.  He could feel the forest around him, knew where all the living things hid and cowered at their passing, and could feel those bonds the werewolves were always talking about, tugging faintly in the wolves around them, strong and vibrant with Derek, passing power back and forth between each other.

They shared the same smile, sharp and full of teeth, hot for the chase.  Stiles felt like a knife flashing through the air, flying straight and true.  When the howls came in closer and the sounds they carried had the nuances of a pack closing in, they split off, not having to discuss it, as certain of one another’s movements as they were of their own.

 


	53. like fucking poetry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _it was one of those things he’d researched, a conclusion he’d come to that he had never tested out or asked about, filed in the box in his brain labelled secret weapons. His analysis had been right._

Peter had always been good at hiding but not running.  Planning, but not reacting.  It put him at a disadvantage when he had to act under pressure.  So, there were maybe things he’d take for granted, variables he’d disregarded.  Blind spots he had.  Which is why Stiles almost felt bad that he was the first to find him.  Almost.

Peter had tossed a loose wolfsbane and mountain ash half-ring around himself on ground he thought that he could hold, a flat spot with a view of most sides and a steep ledge rising at his back that he could climb if the wolves looked like they might break through.  

Likely he figured they’d get tripped up and he could take them out one shot at a time.  Maybe he thought the bodies would distract Stiles enough to keep him at bay as well, if he even figured Stiles had enough life left in him to join the chase.  He wasn’t expecting speed and stealth, and he wasn’t expecting someone capable of slipping through his defenses.  That’s the kind of thing that happens when you stop running and think you can make a hasty stand instead.  You’re never ready for the unexpected.

Peter had been standing ready, gun trained on the ground Scott was seconds away from breaking into when Stiles flanked him, sliding in behind him, claw low, hamstringing both his legs and pulling the gun from his grip as he fell.  Like fucking poetry, and the kind of injury that was going to take more than a few seconds to recover from.  Those tendons had to _find_ each other before they could knit together again, and the whole process was going to be excruciating.

It was one of those things he’d researched, a conclusion he’d come to that he had never tested out or asked about, filed in the box in his brain labelled _secret weapons_.  His analysis had been right.  Peter was so far out of his mind for a little while that it took him a moment to get his bearings.  It was enough time for the posse to arrive, but none of them could come close.  

The rest had taken human form again, all but Derek.  He was pissed, pacing like a caged lion.  He’d tried to get in from the ledge, but it wasn’t scaleable on the sides outside of Peter’s ring.  Stiles had to admit that it had been a pretty good spot, even if the plan had had some obvious flaws.  He knew Derek just wanted to flay Peter, and knew he hated the idea that he couldn’t get in close enough to back Stiles up, and for those reasons alone, Stiles was grateful for the supernatural wall.

Peter was finally coming to his senses, hissing and looking at Stiles through bloodshot eyes, his legs tucked up against his chest where he lay in a fetal position on the ground.  Stiles crouched a few feet away and grinned.

“You awake now, Peter?”

His voice was a strained sobbing groan.  _“Fuck you, boy.  Should have killed you when I first laid eyes on you.  Should have killed you when you turned me down.”_

And that was, for lack of a better word, hilarious.  He didn’t bother to choke down a laugh.  “Oh my god, you have no idea how many times I’ve said the same damn thing about you.”

Peter had no response, just another groan and shudder, just a long stare at the muzzle of the gun.  Stiles stilled, knowing he had a deal to uphold, and knowing just as much that he was perfectly willing not to.  One thing he was certain of, the Fae could get pissed, but they couldn’t take away what they’d shoved into him.  Not this time.  And for some reason he couldn’t shake his conversation with the dead Drow, couldn’t make himself forget it enough to just play nice with Lord Fiern.

Stiles might have hated Peter, but there was one gift he would offer.  “Okay, so here’s the deal.  You listening?”  Peter gave a weak nod.  “You fucked with the Fae and pissed them off and now they want you.  I’ve seen what they do to werewolves, Peter, and it’s not pretty.  They will silence you.  They will decide what form you take and when.  They’ll put a collar on you and make you their pet, keep you in a cage and take you out on hunts, and never, ever let you be anything more than an animal.  Sooner or later, you’ll forget what it was to be a man.”

Peter’s gaze had gone long.  He knew Stiles well enough to know that he wasn’t lying about any of it.  Stiles took another breath and pushed on.  “ _Death is a gift_.  That’s what they believe.  And maybe sometimes it is.  Maybe sometimes it’s a mercy.  So, I guess I’m offering you the choice, here.  I’ll make sure it’s painless, too.  I promise.  Just tell me what you want.”

Peter looked to be thinking about it, he really did, and Stiles himself knew which choice he would have made.  He would have taken the bullet.  He gave Peter what time he needed, no one said anything while he was thinking, but his answer came soon enough anyway.

“Let’s get on with it, boy.  I’m sure your friends don’t like to be kept waiting.”

Stiles caught little more than a quick glance but it was enough to twist his gut.  Peter had chosen, sure.  But he hadn’t chosen to live, he’d chosen not to die.  He made the choice he did because he was too scared to ask for death, but there was nothing but total defeat in his eyes.  And it was a choice that Stiles was bound to honor, because he said he would.  But he knew, without a doubt, that if Stiles were to kill him, Peter would have been grateful, both for the death and for not having to have made the choice himself.

It was likely, too, he realized with a sickening certainty, that the Fae were going to make sure they all saw Peter on more than one occasion once he was broken.  Just because they could.  Just because they liked the power that they could have over the hearts of feeling creatures.

It was the kind of game they liked to play.

Nothing to it, though.  If it was to be a gift, it was going to be a choice freely made, and Stiles wasn’t going to play it any other way.  He watched Peter hobble up, still far from healed but getting there enough that Stiles kept his gun and his eyes locked on the man as he cleared a path out of the boundary.

Maybe he should have expected it.  Maybe he should have seen it coming but his back had been turned and he didn’t even hear Derek’s claws dig into the ground and propel him over Stiles and on to Peter with brutal force, ripping his throat out and gutting him before his body hit the ground.  By the time they could calm Derek down enough, there was little left that looked like Peter, or really, resembled anything human.

 

Fiern was pissed, but not half as pissed as he might have been.  He might have been even less pissed if Stiles would have stopped reminding him that Peter would still be alive if they hadn’t made Derek go feral in the first place.  But whatever.  If there was one thing Stiles was never, ever going to be merciful with, it was his mouth.  If they hadn’t wanted the snark, they should have left him alone to begin with.

Although, to be honest, Stiles had some pretty strong suspicions about exactly how feral Derek had been when he killed Peter.  After the fact, Derek couldn’t remember much of it clearly, but Stiles had a feeling that his wolf had some secrets it was keeping.  

Not that he was going to push it.  The wolf had a right to his secrets, and if he wanted them known he would tell.  And anyway, Stiles wasn’t much of one to go poking at happy endings with a sharp stick, so... He was going to go with the whole letting sleeping dogs sleep, because it was in-fucking-credibly fitting.

Besides, they had cleaning up to do.  Fence-mending.  Bridge-building.  Pissy ass butthurt werewolf bro-hugging or something, Stiles didn’t know, but he knew Scott had come, which meant that maybe, given some serious bitching-time, there was a little hope. 

And as far as Stiles was concerned, a little hope was a lot more than he’d had in a long long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope the lack of a meele final-showdown battle doesn't disappoint, kind of trying for something a little different, here.  
> and yes, kids, it's almost time to say farewell.  
> sad feels for me, happy endings for our boys.


	54. passing through

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It was more than either man had learned to expect out of life._

There was no way that blood, fuck the rest of it, in the end – There was no way that _blood_ ties like the kind Derek had would let one of their own fall into the hands of something as wicked as he knew the Fae to be.  There were so many different reasons why Derek killed his uncle, why it was the absolute _right_ thing to do.  

Even though killing was bad.  Even though killing your own kin was worse.  Even though, as right as it might have been...

Fuck, in the end, he killed his own uncle.  Twice.  The second time with enough force to make sure it fucking stuck.  He was pretty grateful that at least this time it didn’t come with that ridiculous Alpha-high screwing him straight out of his own mind. 

 

They were not okay.

They were so far from okay that trying to make a joke about it came out as nothing but sad.  _Nothing to see here folks, carry on._

There were nights when one or the other couldn’t sleep.  Nights where waiting for daylight became a vigil.  Nights where Stiles woke up like a drowning man, nights where Derek had already bolted out of the bed before he had woken up.  Nights where one would fuck the other senseless just so they could both remember that they were _alive_ and that it counted for something.  Nights where they wouldn’t even hold hands, just lay with their backs pressed tight against each other, breaths matching, heartbeats syncopating, nothing but darkness and each other.

Derek would say it was enough.

It was more than either man had learned to expect out of life.  

 

Normal intertwined with the surreal almost nauseatingly.  Stiles mended fences with his father and built bridges with the new Alpha and his old best friend, but Derek could tell it would wear on Stiles.  Sometimes Stiles would get a look like he was very, very far away.  The kind of look that had Derek walking easy and keeping his eyes open.

From time to time Stiles would take off and Derek would track him.  It wasn’t anything more complicated than pulling backup for a runner as far as Derek was concerned, even if he had no clear idea of how Stiles perceived these moments.  Animal sense dictated that Stiles knew he was following and made no signs of being upset by Derek’s presence.

Then Stiles started doing the same for him on full moons, and it meant Derek could _run_ , knowing he wasn’t alone, he could just cut out and feel nothing but the ground under his feet, the moon’s tug, and his friend’s heartbeat.

 

Twice, Stiles had killed.  Derek had not intervened.  He couldn’t.  It was that simple.  He’d found out enough about the corpses Stiles had left behind previously to know that the world was probably a safer place without those folks walking around.  He was also pretty sure it was wrong to condone murder, regardless.  But the point was moot.  He couldn’t stop Stiles.  He couldn’t even bring himself to try.

 _There were forces at play_.  That’s what Stiles said when he and Derek haltingly tried to have a conversation about it after the first kill.  But Derek had to admit that it was beautiful as well, watching Stiles kill.  (He used to think that about his mother.  She was a force, a fierce sleek movement that began and ended with exact precision, death foretold, like the act was just an afterthought.)

So, there were forces at play.  Derek had a feeling these forces could rip Stiles apart if things kept on as they were, but he honestly had no idea how to change that, other than pull him out of whatever cave he was hiding in and drag him into the real world, a world in which he wasn’t the center of some unspoken conversation.

 

It had him pulling Stiles out of his room and dragging him to the law offices when he had to go sign some shit.  Well, that and Derek hated to go there alone, the place was creepy.  Given, it did cater to the supernatural.  (Bonus: They didn’t need evidence that Peter was dead, the firm had evidence of their own.)

He was the sole trustee for all the Hale Pack funds, which made no sense, there was no Hale Pack.  There would never be a Hale Pack again.  But it wasn’t the sort of thing you could sign over to a teenaged pack of strangers.  The funds manager would have a lot to say about that, mostly along the lines of _hell no._   Not unless and until Derek actually died, then he could will a portion of it to them.

In the interim, there was paperwork to be signed, and yes, Derek was man enough to admit that signing things in that building did require the assistance of a friend.  Bringing Stiles wasn’t really like dragging anyway, once Stiles walked in through the door.  He just sort of stared, wide eyed, looking all around him.  He was seeing something Derek could only ever feel the edges of, some sort of pressure that tasted like magic and the promise of blood.

But Stiles didn’t look scared.  Fascinated, more like.

The lawyer they met with sat and watched with an amused grin as Stiles peppered him with questions about the runes and powerlines in the building and Derek growled and barked at him to shut up.

But the lawyer didn’t seem to mind.  Derek’s hands began to feel a little cold when he realized that the conversation had shifted and that Stiles was the one answering questions.  Derek wouldn’t have thought twice about it if it wasn’t for the fact that some weird woman-ish creature was watching them from outside the glass doors.

After a few moments, the woman nodded and his lawyer nodded back, almost imperceptibly.  Every hair on the back of his neck was standing on end as Derek grit his teeth and forced himself to say something about it instead of just putting himself between Stiles and danger, sprouting fangs and claws, something that was likely frowned on in this particular building.

“You mind telling me what that was about?”  He almost managed to sound calm.  

Derek did manage to keep the pen steady as he pointed in the woman’s general direction with it, but didn’t raise his head until the absence of an answer had him glancing back up.  

The lawyer was smiling, as he always did.  Maybe a little bigger.  Maybe it was almost reaching his eyes.  “Not at all, Mister Hale.”

Both stilled completely as the lawyer leaned forward.  “Your friend seems to have caught the attention of a very particular department head.  She’s prepared to offer you both a job.”

 

And that’s how all possibility of Stiles ever having a normal career vaporized.  Right  behind the five-figure 'incentive' check he was handed before they left the building.  It was also how they both became transport personnel for items that required “careful attention.”

Derek actually took to the idea of a job.  Stiles took to the idea of spending most of his time driving vast distances and getting paid a five-figure sum to do it.   The Sheriff and Derek took bets as to how long Stiles would last before he either a) Dropped Something or b) Looked In The Box.  Stiles responded that comments like that were the exact reason why his father and too much information were a poor combination and why Derek should just shut the fuck up and get in the fucking Land Rover.

 

It was some sort of peace, the sound of the road rolling under your tires and the secure knowledge that your home was on your back, that you weren’t leaving half your life behind because everything you wanted and needed was right there with you, no matter which road you were laying tracks into.  It was never about leaving anymore. It was all about passing through.

 

They were not okay.

Probably they never would be.

But there was something there, somewhere between who they had been and what they had become.  Some sort of breathing room, some sort of comfort. 

Some sort of peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no.  
> nonononono.  
> don't want it to be over.  
> This was an amazing ride, guys. Thanks for coming along.  
> If any of you were wondering, I wrote it a chapter at a time.  
> When I wrote the first chapter, I had in mind the idea that magic could be made to look and feel much more organic than it normally does, wanted to bring the "real" world of spell-casting into a realm where results were clear, apparent and strong. So, a world where magic was almost believable.  
> Also, the idea that Derek made the pack with Scott in mind. This has actually become head-cannon for me.  
> And at some point there was going to be a showdown between a runaway Stiles and Derek finally catching up to him. (It looked nothing like what ended up happening. Seriously. He was drunk. In some place that looked like Calgary.)  
> Also, reflecting on people and lives I have come across, looking into the mindset of someone who has survived the amount of trauma that Stiles had, how he would cope. What you might see.  
> Also, how easily you can evolve into a mindset in which killing is par for the course, and what happens when you have to return into a "civilized" society.  
> And, most importantly, The Road.  
> I did it little justice, but then again, The Road is a place that reaches past words anyway.  
> I published most chapters less than a day after first writing them. My editing process tends to be re-reading a chapter about three times before I cross my eyes and stick out my tongue at it and hit "post."  
> So I ran the risk of writing myself into a corner or just boring myself with the direction I chose to take on any given chapter. I reached a couple moments like that, but you guys talked me off the ledge. Sometimes I'd re-start a chapter two or three times before getting somewhere good with it. I have about twenty-thousand words worth of aborted chapter beginnings, important events and ends. Because it's a lot easier to get rid of it when you just move it to a file than throw it out altogether. I'm a word hoarder.  
> Some of them aren't even a wrong direction, just extra info that you didn't need to know. Like, for instance, while there's somethings Derek can't do with his trust fund, Derek can invest with the fund money and he did buy the abandoned railyard, hooking it up with turbines for off-grid power. Didn't work out what they did about water, though.  
> anyway,  
> glad you stuck around.  
> glad it worked if you liked it, and get the fuck off my lawn if you didn't.  
> love and light, my darlings.  
> I will miss you.  
> : )


End file.
